Donald Trump’s murderous Immigration and Customs Enforcement rampages aren’t just fascist violations of human rights. They are also an assault on the local economies of the blue cities Trump punishes for opposing his regime.
So finds Wharton professor and immigration scholar Exequiel Hernandez in a new paper analyzing the economic impacts of ICE sieges:
In January 2025, U.S. immigration enforcement expanded sharply and moved from the border to the interior. I estimate the economic spillovers of this new regime in targeted metropolitan areas using data on 5,388 geocoded ICE raids combined with foot-traffic and spending data for 5.4 million points of interest (POI). Foot traffic falls 2.7% and spending declines 6.2% per POI per week—or 8.1 billion fewer visits and $3-14 billion in foregone spending in a single year. Effects intensify near raid sites, do not dissipate over time, and are remarkably general: declines occur regardless of neighborhood demography, affect workplaces and consumer-facing stores across myriad industries, and trigger no substitution to online shopping. The breadth of the local economic damage mirrors the breadth of the enforcement approach [Exequiel Hernandez, abstract: “ICE-ing the Economy: Immigration Enforcement Under Trump 2.0 and Local Economic Activity,” SSRN, 2026.05.13].
Trump is using ICE to chill democracy and local economies. Americans need to use the midterm elections to elect a Congress with the courage to stop Trump’s mad assault on American freedoma nd prosperity.
Well, if you need workers in firefighting, slaughterhouses, general farm workers, roofers, etc. etc, your screwed. So all the NWWBs, non-working white boys get to it.
All those wonderful jobs are awaiting you. They are yours for the taking, of course you want the wages raised right? Well, I guess you can join or form a union! Just what the Maga boys want. What a wonderful Trump world.
Those jobs are necessary for the good of the country. We need people who are
willing to do them. They should be paid accordingly.