LETTER: Trump goes too far with deportations
Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, has set a quota for deportations of 3,000 a day or 1 million a year. During his campaign, the president vowed to deport criminals. But of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, only 2.7 percent have felony convictions. Why deport an additional 800,000?
These undocumented immigrants pay $96 billion in taxes (federal, state and local), helping support the Social Security programs that they are ineligible to participate in. They also spend $299 billion on goods and services. Their deportation would cause a loss of GDP and result in severe labor shortages in agriculture and construction.
If Mr. Trump’s deportation program succeeds, businesses will have higher costs and the price of your food and housing would increase … inflationary.
We all are in favor of deporting criminal undocumented immigrants, but Mr. Trump’s impulsive nature has the administration barking up the wrong tree.
Granting legal status to undocumented immigrants with no felony record would lead to including increased tax revenue and economic growth. What sense does it make to deprive our economy of billions of dollars while spending $88 billion on deportations?
Revising immigration policy by implementing a merit-based system and granting legal status to our undocumented will enhance the economy — and your 401(k). This is the tree we should be barking up.
