As we head into the final stretch of the cycle, Donald Trump, who has made his entire candidacy a referendum on immigration, will not discuss his mass deportation plans in detail—not in a recent Univision town hall nor his one debate with Kamala Harris. That’s a tell.
Since those debates, Trump has only leaned deeper into mass deportations, while Harris has aggressively made her case about how she will help Latinos economically, a telling reset to reach Latino voters in the final weeks of the election.
Trump knows that explaining what mass deportations entail would be a disaster for him. Yes, some polls show an alarming rise in support for mass deportations. However, when voters are made aware of how much it costs and the human toll it would take in terms of family separations and the removal of decades-long residents, mass deportation becomes politically toxic.
Mass deportations would be ugly; they would require local law enforcement to work with federal law enforcement to remove law-abiding residents, many of whom have woven their lives and livelihoods into the fabric of their communities. It would separate mixed-status families, leaving children who have been here their whole lives without their parents. We are still dealing with the aftermath of the last time the Trump administration separated families at our southern border—one of the ugliest moments in the modern history of our country.
We must bring this story to life for voters: new research from Valiente Action Fund found that hard negative ads against Trump, showing how his policies would separate families, could increase support for Kamala Harris with a broad swath of voters, including men, white, black, Latino, liberal, Moderate-Liberal, and Moderate voters. That’s a compelling clean sweep that shores up the softer parts of the Democratic coalition while also improving Harris’s chances with suburban swing voters.
"We have to tell that story and not let Trump define immigration for our country," Valiente Action Fund executive director Maria Rodriguez said. "When we identify the specifics of what Trump is proposing with mass deportations, as was done in the ad Playbook 2025, and tell the story of what he is planning on doing on immigration, it moves voters."
Beyond the human cost, mass deportation would also have catastrophic economic costs. Not only would mass deportations not lower costs for average households, but they could potentially lead to raising taxes for most Americans. According to the nonpartisan American Immigration Council:
A mass deportation of 1 million people per year could cost $88 billion annually. It would require an unprecedented ramp-up of law enforcement staffing, detention capacity, immigration courtrooms, and flight capacity.
That amount of money does not currently exist in the federal budget. So to fund such a sweeping effort, Trump would likely have to either raise taxes on American households or possibly steal the funds from other social services coffers, such as Social Security or Medicare.
Ironically, on the economy—the issue Trump purports would benefit from his mass deportation plan—Kamala Harris has a remarkable success story, with record-high job creation, small business growth, and healthcare coverage for Latinos. And what she plans to do in her first term as president is even more impressive.
Harris proposes creating opportunities for Latinos in the workforce through training programs, including doubling registered apprenticeships and eliminating unnecessary college degree requirements, which would benefit some 2 million workers. She supports veterans' readiness and employment programs. She will allow registered apprentices and construction workers to write off their tools and equipment expenses—a crucial savings for contractors and small business owners as they work to replenish the country’s housing stock and upgrade our aging infrastructure.
These are all actual economic policies that would help Latinos and the country, not fascist fantasies of mass deportations.
If elected, Trump will slap tariffs on everything from food to gasoline, raising costs on the average Latino family by nearly $4,000. Cut support for Latino small businesses to give big tax breaks to his corporate buddies—gut the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, as well as separate families.
On that last point, mass deportation, at its core, is not just politically toxic, it is wrong. Americans have fought in wars to stop these policies from being implemented, and we must help them remember the values that are foundational to our country. It helps that Trump’s fascist plan also cuts against our country’s economic interests. Voters can stop this from happening, but only if we show up and vote in November.
