Mass Deportations Would Impoverish US Families and Create Immense Social Costs

This paper provides a statistical portrait of the US undocumented population, with an emphasis on the social and economic condition of mixed-status households – that is, households that contain a US citizen and an undocumented resident. It is based primarily on data compiled by the Center for Migration Studies (CMS). Major findings include the following:

• There were 3.3 million mixed-status households in the United States in 2014.
• 6 million US-born citizens share 3 million households with undocumented residents (mostly their parents). Of these US-born citizens, 5.7 million are children (under age 18).
• 2.9 million undocumented residents were 14 years old or younger when they were brought to the United States.
• Three-quarters of a million undocumented residents are self-employed, having created their own jobs and in the process, creating jobs for many others.
• A total of 1.3 million, or 13 percent of the undocumented over age 18, have college degrees.
• Of those with college degrees, two-thirds, or 855,000, have degrees in four fields: engineering, business, communications, and social sciences.
• Six million undocumented residents, or 55 percent of the total, speak English well, very well, or only English.
• The unemployment rate for the undocumented was 6.6 percent, the same as the national rate in January 2014.
• Seventy-three percent had incomes at or above the poverty level.
• Sixty-two percent have lived in the United States for 10 years or more.
• Their median household income was $41,000, about $12,700 lower than the national figure of $53,700 in 2014 (US Census Bureau 2015).

Based on this profile, a massive deportation program can be expected to have the following major consequences:

• Removing undocumented residents from mixed-status households would reduce median household income from $41,300 to $22,000, a drop of $19,300, or 47 percent, which would plunge millions of US families into poverty.
• If just one-third of the US-born children of undocumented residents remained in the United States following a mass deportation program, which is a very low estimate, the cost of raising those children through their minority would total $118 billion.
• The nation’s housing market would be jeopardized because a high percentage of the 1.2 million mortgages held by households with undocumented immigrants would be in peril.
• Gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4 percent in the first year, and cumulative GDP would be reduced by $4.7 trillion over 10 years.

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