One of the desired effects of the Trump administration’s “flood the zone” strategy of pushing out dozens of executive orders and policy changes as quickly as possible is to make it impossible for the news media to focus on anything long enough to fully capture the attention of the public before the next atrocity is announced. It’s been quite successful so far, although Epstein scandal may have finally broken their rhythm enough to penetrate the national consciousness. Unfortunately, this has led to a sense that some of the worst actions of Trump 2.0 are perceived to have disappeared and it just isn’t true. None of them are creating more human misery on a daily basis than Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s mass round-up and deportation program.
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) first started rousting day workers at Home Depots in Los Angeles County back on June 6th, it garnered a ton of coverage, particularly once people started protesting at the downtown Los Angeles federal detention center. You’ll recall that they had the character of a rather normal big city protest handled easily by the L.A. Police Department but Donald Trump decided it was time to flex his muscles and he escalated the situation by going over the head of California Governor Gavin Newsom to activate the California National Guard. Excited by the sight of men in military garb on the streets of an American city he hates, he then ordered active duty Marines to join them for no apparent reason.
It was a big story for a few days, coming as it did around the same time as the spectacle of California Senator Alex Padilla being wrestled to the ground and handcuffed when he tried to ask DHS Secretary Kristi Noem a question at an L.A. press conference. The national media focused on the immigration issue with much concern about the civil liberties issues raised by this ICE and CPB overkill (not to mention all the military involvement) and it appeared that the mass deportation program might get the kind of sustained treatment that could pressure lawmakers and possibly produce a change in policy. After all, that had happened during Trump’s first term when people protested his “Muslim ban” and intense coverage of families being separated at the border forced the administration to back off.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. The national media turned away and after a laughable, staged “show of force” one day, the nearly 5,000 National Guard troops were reduced by almost half and the Marines were quietly released. But the ICE/CPB raids have continued apace, and have picked up in other cities as well. In fact, Noem and “immigration Czar” Tom Homan have promised to step up their presence in New York which may refocus attention on the issue. (New York is the home of the news media and if it happens there it gets covered.)
Los Angeles was always going to be one of the main priorities of this deportation policy with its large immigrant population and Hispanic character. It’s the poster city for everything the MAGA movement hates about America. The fact that it had recently gone through a major trauma with a firestorm that destroyed an estimated 16,000 homes just made it all the sweeter. Dealing with its mammoth recovery effort, the city needed its immigrant labor force more than ever and this operation was designed to force workers, businesses and customers into the shadows, terrified and paranoid. And they have good reason to feel that way.
Sen. Padilla, an L.A. native, has recently tried to appeal to locals to spend money in businesses which are really hurting as a result of the crack-downs:
Reports like this are happening all over Los Angeles where Latino and Asian immigrants and citizens alike are living under siege from these unidentified, masked men (and they appear to be all men) who are bursting into workplaces, grabbing people off the streets and even waiting outside courtrooms where immigrants appear for their hearings to quickly detain and deport them.
It isn’t just the small city businesses that are being impacted, however. For instance, ICE has raided farms, either detaining workers or scaring them into not coming to work, leaving the farms with crops unpicked, rotting on the vine. Factories are being impacted as well. The NY Times reported this week on a once thriving meat-packing operation in Omaha, Nebraska that has lost most of its work force resulting in a 70 percent drop in production. It’s happening in manufacturing and of all kinds, forcing companies to actually lay off American workers because they have to shut down assembly lines. Nursing Home staffs are around 40% foreign born, many of whom are from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and have just had their legal status unceremoniously yanked by Trump. Immigrants make up 34% of the construction workforce and aren’t replaceable by Americans who don’t have the required skills.
All across the American economy we are about to see a profound disruption as a major part of the workforce is simply disappeared into camps and then deported which the administration blithely waves away by insisting that the proverbial 29 year old men living in their mother’s basement will be thrilled to work in a meat packing plant or a nursing home so they can keep their fabulous Medicaid benefits.
The economic statistics around undocumented workers are unequivocal. CNN reports this week that a new analysis by Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis is going to” shrink most worker paychecks, erode gross domestic product (GDP) and spike the already-massive federal government budget deficit.” As Kent Smetters, professor of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School told CNN, the reason is obvious: “the US economy will get smaller as you deport a lot of the workforce.You simply have fewer bodies to produce. Fewer people means a smaller economy.” That’s obvious when you think about it, isn’t it?
It’s also the case that immigrants pay taxes, they are consumers, many even pay into the Social Security and Medicare systems and reap no rewards which means they are actually helping to support American retirees. Economists are very worried that as Baby Boomers continue to age out of the workforce, businesses won’t be able to replace them, a problem that’s going to be made even worse by the lack of foreign born workers.
Between Trump’s inane tariff policy and this draconian deportation operation, it’s only a matter of time before this economy falls apart. I wonder if seeing the suffering of these workers who are being hunted down like animals is going to be worth it to all those MAGA true believers when they see what it’s going to cost them.
Salon