GOP strategist: Border security is crucial but mass deportations would be a disaster | Opinion
In 2014, when Congress failed to pass immigration reform, President Barack Obama used executive authority to enact sweeping changes to the immigration system. Republicans denounced his actions as “unconstitutional” and an egregious violation of the separation of powers.
Fast forward to today, and Republicans are now cheering President Donald Trump’s own barrage of immigration executive orders, hailing them as essential to securing America’s borders. Only in Washington could such blatant hypocrisy be brushed off as business as usual.
Most concerning is Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to immigrant parents who are in the country without authorization.
Birthright citizenship has been a common law practice since America’s inception and a foundational principle since it was enshrined in the 14th Amendment in 1868. Trump’s action upends more than 150 years of legal certainty while setting a perilous precedent that should concern every American. Today, it’s citizenship; tomorrow, with a Democrat in the White House, it could be the right to bear arms or even freedom of speech that’s being threatened.
After the initial “shock and awe” of Trump’s immigration crackdown has faded and all the lawsuits are settled, Washington will still face the pressing question of what to do with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States.
Ending President Joe Biden’s “catch and release” policies and deporting violent criminals are important first steps for Trump, and he was right to take them. But they will barely scratch the surface of a problem created over decades by politicians who lacked the political courage to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants and fix a broken immigration system.
The reality is that viable paths revolve around mass deportations and a pathway to citizenship.
A pathway to citizenship, or amnesty, has been a contentious issue for decades and has consistently faced strong Republican opposition — for good reason. Granting amnesty undermines the rule of law and rewards those who entered the country illegally.
Amnesty seems like a non-starter now, especially since one of Trump’s first actions was to strip away citizenship rights rather than grant them. But who knows? Maybe that will change. After all, exit polls showed that Trump got 45% of the Hispanic vote in 2024 and he has changed his position on issues based on election results — as seen with his reversal on the TikTok ban.
Mass deportation would be a disaster. The removal of millions of workers in construction, hospitality and agriculture jobs is projected to slash the gross domestic product by $1.7 trillion — a 6% decline — and could plunge the U.S. into a recession. Businesses across these critical industries would be devastated, leaving a ripple effect of job losses and economic instability.
And that’s just the beginning. Estimates suggest that carrying out mass deportations could cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars — money the federal government simply doesn’t have.
In his inaugural address, Trump pointed to federal overspending as a major contributor to the current inflation crisis. If we commit to spending trillions of dollars we don’t have, we are repeating the mistakes of the Biden administration.
Don’t expect the work of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cover the gap, either. Elon Musk recently said that $2 trillion in federal budget cuts would be a “best-case outcome,” and he admitted there’s only a “good shot” at cutting even half that total.
This is not a “small investment” as Speaker Mike Johnson said in an interview on Sunday. It’s a recipe for economic disaster. No American voted for that.
Maybe that’s why immigration has become another third rail of politics where division and finger-pointing often take precedence over solving the problem.
Maybe Trump will have the political will to solve this, or maybe we will just see a lot of smoke and mirrors in an effort to score political points. Regardless, permanently securing the border is an important first step taken by Trump. Without it, any reform risks being temporary at best, leaving the nation to face the same issues down the road.