A version of this story, authored by Carol Jackson & Jackie Ogburn originally appeared on the Sanford School of Public Policy website on April 17, 2025.
The United States is a nation of immigrants, but we have a complex history on the topic. At times, the government has tried deporting large numbers of immigrants, with the goal of protecting the jobs and wages of native-born Americans. The current administration has announced plans to deport all undocumented immigrants, even some legal immigrants, as well as new travel bans. Hannah Postel researches the relationship of migration and economic development and provides a historical perspective on immigration deportations and restrictions. She talks with Anna Gassman-Pines, who leads faculty affairs at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.
Conversation Highlights
Responses have been edited for clarity.
ON THE ECONOMICS OF A PREVIOUS MASS DEPORTATION EFFORT
Michael Clemens, Ethan Lewis and I studied the end of the Bracero Program, which sent about half a million Mexican farm workers back to Mexico in 1964. That program was designed to raise the employment and wages of US-born workers. The Braceros, on average, were about 11% of the seasonal farm workforce in 1964. What we found was that excluding these half a million Braceros had no effect on wages or employment for US-born workers.
(The government) really, really thought that this was going to be extremely beneficial to the native workforce. We actually found that not to be true at all. Wages went up across the board, but they went up everywhere (this was a factor of the economy at the time). There was no disproportionate increase in wages in states that had employed Braceros and states that didn't. (And in fact) we found that farms quickly mechanized to replace immigrant labor. And where there was no technology available (for example harvesting strawberries, which are very delicate and can't be done by a machine) farms actually experienced output decline rather than hiring more native workers.
ON HOW DEPORTATION CAN INCREASE THE UNDOCUMENTED POPULATION
I think one underappreciated aspect of this is (that deportation stops) circular migration - people who come to the US and work for six or nine months out of the year and then return home. Forcefully closing the border was probably the cause of the massive increase of the undocumented population in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. People, rather than returning home, just stayed in the United States in an undocumented situation. (So) these bans led to an increase in the population which the policy was meant to reduce.
ON THE HISTORY OF RESTRICTING IMMIGRATION BY CERTAIN GROUPS
The first US federal immigration policy ever passed was the Page Act in 1875 that essentially excluded all Chinese women from immigrating to the US. This was followed by Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, where most unskilled men, those who were deemed laborers, were excluded from the United States.
I think, sadly, the Chinese Exclusion Act has a lot of contemporary resonance. Under the first Trump administration, he passed the travel ban, which we're seeing essentially updated and expanded, being proposed today. Some sociologists have shown in the modern day, that if immigration bans are implemented in one specific place, we just see people redirecting to other forms of entry (to the US). So, the net effect is actually zero.
These bans have been put in place, in part, because of the argument that they're going to reduce crime -- that immigrants are committing more crime than native-born workers, or perhaps put the U.S. at risk of terrorism. (But) recent research in political science measured the effects of the refugee ban of 2017. They found that there were absolutely no effects on crime from excluding people from the US from those sets of countries.
ON WHETHER AMERICANS WILL DO LOW-WAGE JOBS TRADITIONALLY HELD BY IMMIGRANTS
There was a great paper by my co-author, Michael Clemens, where he studied the farm work sector in North Carolina during the Great Recession. These were years when there were about 100,000 unemployed individuals in North Carolina on average. (But) only 268 of those had asked to be referred to the North Carolina Growers Association for jobs. So, most U.S.-born individuals simply weren't even looking for (or even open to exploring) jobs in the farm sector. And then, less than half of them showed up on their first day, and only seven of them made it through the entire season. I think that suggests that this work is very hard, and of course, wages are not particularly high.
ON THE UPSIDE FOR AMERICANS WHEN IMMIGRANTS FILL LOW-WAGE JOBS
I think construction is the number one sector hiring immigrants, and we see a large range of immigrants across highly skilled sectors in the United States, as well. Some research that shows that by employing immigrants in these more manual occupations, it actually leads to “occupational upgrading” for United States-born individuals who are able to take on more managerial positions.
ON THE ECONOMIC HIT THE COUNTRY WILL TAKE WITHOUT IMMIGRANT LABOR
It would be extremely painful. We saw this under COVID when we were seeing large labor shortages. We saw huge increases in prices in a lot of produce, in particular, but other food products, as well.
I think also, in combination with these new tariffs, the construction industry is going to be hit really hard because the price of materials is going up, and it is the largest sector employing immigrant labor. So, we could see the price of new homes and new construction in general really going through the roof.
I also think this is going to spill over to a lot of other areas. If you think about native workers not wanting to take these low wage jobs, either those jobs go unfilled, or we dramatically increase the wages that we provide for them. In either way, we see reduced output and increased prices. And so regardless, that’s going to happen.
Hannah Postel is an assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and a faculty affiliate at the Duke Population Research Institute.