What is the impact on the local economy if even a small share of the immigrants most at risk are arrested in Northern New England?
If one percent of immigrant men in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont who have not been to college, the group most at risk, were arrested in the type of dramatic raids we’ve seen around the country, it would result in 200 arrests, and a decline in employment of 100 other immigrant men and 700 U.S.-born men. The impacts are focused primarily on men, since 90 percent of ICE arrests are male, and in the U.S. labor market many jobs are highly gendered.
These results are from a state-by-state analysis that Chloe East, Elizabeth Cox, and I just released. The results for Northern New England here combines three states that were not included individually in that report due to small sample sizes.
How does the employment decline happen?
The arrests drive a chain of events.
The immigrants arrested lose their jobs. Employment of other immigrants declines too, as people—whether or not they have work authorization—protect themselves from potential arrest by staying away from work sites.
Businesses have a hard time replacing workers in the niches where immigrants are playing a particularly big role. That in turn has an impact on the business as a whole, and creates a decline in employment in other areas where U.S.-born workers play a bigger role. Take the construction industry, for example. When roofers and construction laborers, who are often immigrants, are pushed out of the labor force there is also a decline in employment for electricians and plumbers, who are mostly U.S.-born.
As employment declines, so does local spending, which puts further pressure on local businesses and a further drop in jobs.
Wages even for those workers who still have jobs are flat—there is not the increase some people might expect.
The IRI state-by-state analysis is based on a really important National Bureau of Economic Research paper published by East and Cox, leading researchers in the field. That study showed the negative impact of radically expanded ICE activity on local economies. When ICE comes to town wearing masks and recklessly arresting immigrants, the result is a shrinking local economy and a negative impact on both immigrants and U.S.-born workers.
That is exactly what economists predicted, but not what the Trump administration promised when it started rounding up immigrants.