Companies warn against immigration cuts as Donald Trump plans crackdown

US business groups warn that any crackdown on immigration would limit their ability to operate in a tight labour market, pointing to possible tensions with a second-term Trump administration.

Immigration has emerged as a flashpoint in this year’s presidential election, with Donald Trump vowing tough restrictions on illegal immigrants, which he says are “poisoning the blood” of the country, along with mass deportations. At the same time, some Democrats are calling on President Joe Biden to do more to halt record flows of asylum seekers crossing the southern border.

“Immigration is one of those issues everyone likes to talk about but no one wants to solve,” said Brian Turmail, vice-president of public affairs and workforce at the Associated General Contractors of America.  

Industry lobbyists say the US economy remains dependent on labourers from abroad, and that existing shortages would be worsened by restrictions to programmes for undocumented workers.

If re-elected, Trump is expected to revive first-term efforts to limit the Temporary Protected Status regime for asylum seekers and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, which seeks to protect workers who were brought to the US unlawfully as children. Both are significant sources of workers for industries such as construction, hospitality and agriculture.

“There’s kind of a sword of Damocles hanging over these workers in that someone might end the programme,” said Turmail.

Under the TPS programme — which Trump attempted to roll back when he was in office but was blocked by the courts — about 610,000 foreign nationals are able to temporarily stay and work in the US.

As many as 530,000 Daca recipients are eligible to live and work in the US. Insiders in Trump’s campaign have indicated that he would revive his failed attempt to end Daca, and the Supreme Court could also decide the programme’s legality by late 2024.

“It’s challenging for our members who employ dreamers [Daca recipients] . . . to have a situation where the legality of that programme is up in the air,” said Ed Egee, vice-president of government relations and workforce development at the National Retail Federation.

“My assumption is that Trump is not on our side on any of these issues — should he win we’ll have that conversation with the administration.”

According to research from Oxford Economics, a modelled scenario in which Trump uses his presidential powers to cut legal and illegal net migration from 1.2mn in 2023 to 560,000 by 2027 would shrink potential GDP growth by 0.2 percentage points, reduce labour force participation by 6 basis points and increase prices. 

“Inflation in Trump’s scenario would be higher than in the current baseline due to fewer workers coming in via more stringent immigration policy,” said Ryan Sweet, Oxford Economics’ chief US economist.

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Trump’s campaign team did not respond to a request for comment.

Industries such as construction and hospitality say that labour shortages are inhibiting their ability to operate.

“We’ve already seen restaurants that used to do lunch service not offer that anymore — there is going to be a point where our access to recruiting and retaining the workforce is going to limit our economic activity,” said National Restaurant Association executive vice-president for public affairs Sean Kennedy.

Jon Baselice, vice-president of immigration policy at the US Chamber of Commerce, said a lack of action on immigration “cuts across party lines”, with the Biden administration proposing new rules that would require employers using temporary H2A visas to engage in labour neutrality agreements — which require them to not take a position during a union’s attempts to organise.

“We have vastly suboptimal legal avenues and you get threats to those from both sides of the aisle.”