Despite former President Donald Trump's claims that illegal immigrants are taking what he considers "Black" and "Hispanic" jobs, federal employment data shows they contribute to economic growth and provide opportunities for native-born workers, the Associated Press reported.
As far as Trump's threats to deport millions of immigrants if elected, economists say that would cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and have a disastrous effect on the cost of living, the report said.
Janiyah Thomas, the director of Team Trump Black Media, told the Associated Press that Democrats "continue to prioritize the interests of illegal immigrants over our own Black Americans who were born in this country."
Trump also claimed job gains in the Biden administration are mostly due to illegal immigration.
But an examination of data from the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey shows that native-born Black workers were mainly employed in management and financial operations, sales and office support roles as of 2023.
Native-born Latino workers filled management, office support, sales and service occupation jobs, the AP reported.
But foreign-born, noncitizen Black workers are primarily in transportation and health care support roles, while foreign-born, noncitizen Hispanic workers are represented in construction, building and grounds cleaning, the AP reported.
Economists who study immigration's effect on the economy say people in the country illegally do not take native Americans' jobs, because the jobs those workers fill are mainly the ones citizens do not want, like agriculture and food processing jobs.
Giovanni Peri, a labor economist at the University of California, Davis, who studied the economic impact of the 1980 influx of Cuban immigrants into Miami, said immigrants improve the overall conditions for native-born workers.
The native-born workers also have different language and skill sets compared to most immigrants.
And because there are more jobs available than workers to take them, native-born workers have little interest in taking labor-intensive agriculture and food production positions.
"We have many more vacancies than workers in this type of manual labor, in fact we need many more of them to fill these roles," Peri told the AP.
As for Trump's plan for massive deportations, Peri said the operation would be economically disastrous and wildly expensive. It would also send the costs of food and other basic items soaring.
"They are massive contributors to our economy and we wouldn't have fruits and vegetables, we wouldn't have our gardens," he said.
Peri estimates that such a program would result in a $1 trillion loss, because people in the U.S. illegally make up about 4% of the country's annual GDP, the AP reported.
"It's a cost that is mind-boggling in terms of income loss, production loss and there will be a logistical cost to organize this," he said.
Trump ignited a firestorm of controversy when he claimed earlier this year that immigrants were taking what he indicated were low-level, easy-to pick up "Black jobs," later saying the same about "Hispanic jobs." Social media erupted with comments about countless accomplished people of color in demanding, high-level jobs, including many with educational credentials far beyond Trump's.
A physician. An astronaut. And a fighter pilot.
— Alister Martin (@AlisterFMartin) June 28, 2024
Reporting live from our #blackjobs pic.twitter.com/4tnxpQbwZT
