REPORT: Trump’s Mass Deportations Will Devastate U.S. Cities
Study projects 8% labor force drop, housing instability, and steep losses in tax revenue.
A NEW REPORT from Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research is sounding the alarm on the local consequences of President Donald Trump’s deportation drive, warning that the removal of millions of undocumented residents would deal a crippling blow to metropolitan economies across the country.
MIGRANT INSIDER is sponsored by
The August brief, titled “Mass Deportation: Impacts on Houston and Beyond,” projects steep declines in labor force participation, housing stability, and consumer spending if Trump follows through on his pledge to deport more than 10 million immigrants. The study focuses on Houston — where nearly one in four residents is foreign-born — but argues the findings apply nationally.
Researchers estimate that in Houston alone, mass deportations would shrink the workforce by more than 8 percent, stripping critical sectors such as construction, health care, and food services of employees they rely on daily. “This isn’t just about immigrants,” the report notes. “The ripple effects would reach homeowners, businesses, schools, and local governments dependent on tax revenue generated by immigrant communities.”
The Kinder Institute also warns of social costs. Children in mixed-status families — hundreds of thousands in Texas — would face higher rates of trauma, absenteeism, and academic decline if parents were deported. Deportations would likely increase housing vacancies and depress home values, particularly in working-class neighborhoods with large immigrant populations .
The findings echo decades of scholarship on immigration, including Charles Kamasaki’s history of U.S. immigration reform, which documents how past mass removals — from the Depression-era Mexican repatriations to Operation Wetback in the 1950s — left deep scars not only on deported families but on the American economy itself.
Kinder researchers conclude that the Trump plan would not restore jobs to native-born workers, as the administration claims, but instead “undermine the very urban economies that power American growth.” The brief urges local leaders to prepare now, both by investing in immigrant legal defense and by fortifying social safety nets in anticipation of federal crackdowns.
“Houston’s story is America’s story,” the authors write. “Mass deportation would not only tear families apart — it would destabilize the cities that drive the nation’s prosperity.”
If you’ve made it this far, you care. Help me keep pressing the powerful for answers and exposing what they’d rather you never see—subscribe or donate to keep Migrant Insider going.