Tom Zirpoli: Undocumented immigrants are more than a campaign slogan | COMMENTARY

Donald Trump says if he becomes president again, he will round up all 11 million undocumented immigrants and deport them to Mexico. It is interesting how he thinks that they are all Mexican, coming across our southern border. As usual, he is misinformed.

A majority of undocumented immigrants — more than 60% — come into America legally, usually through airports, and outstay their visitation visa. The majority of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today are not from Mexico and certainly not Mexican.

The “Mexican invasion” language used by Trump makes for a strong sound bite that appeals to his supporters. Trump likes to scare his supporters and motivate them to vote for him with racist slogans about “Mexican drug dealers” and “Mexican rapists” pouring over the southern border. In reality, the folks coming over the southern border are mostly poor women and children.

Misinformation is the name of the game for Trump. In an interview with “60 Minutes,” he said two to three million undocumented immigrants in America were “criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers.” Not true. If it were, why didn’t Trump have them arrested or deported during his first term as he promised during his first campaign? Indeed, this is a repeat performance.

I’m sure Trump understands that the U.S. economy would collapse if he followed through on his promise to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. He is not known for keeping his promises, so who knows what will happen if he is re-elected?

After all, we are still waiting for Mexico to pay for the border wall he installed during his first term and for China to pay for America’s import tariffs. I think it is safe to say a Trump campaign promise is as valid as any of his three wedding vows.

At a recent campaign rally, Trump promised to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” The crowd cheered. I guess his supporters are ignorant of the economic consequences of such a mass deportation.

Perhaps they don’t eat fruits and vegetables so having no one to pick crops for our farmers would not be a problem. On the other hand, American farmers might care as their crops rot in the fields and their bank accounts empty.

The outstanding American economy — the best in the world currently — is largely due to the help of legal and illegal immigrants who have come into the U.S. over the past years.

Anyone paying attention understands America has a significant worker shortage. Without immigrants, businesses and factories can’t operate, construction would come to a stop, nursing homes and daycare centers would close, and then there is the economic impact.

Researchers at Queens College-CUNY found that undocumented workers in America contributed about $5 trillion of private-sector gross domestic product over the past decade. For example, without undocumented workers, the researchers found that the California economy would see a $83 billion decline in private-sector economic output over 10 years and Texas would see a $51 billion decline.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the influx of immigrants since 2022 is expected to make the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) about $7 trillion richer over the next 10 years (2023 to 2034) than it would have been without them.

In 2019, in just 10 states studied by the New American Economy Research Fund, undocumented Mexican immigrants alone pumped $82 billion into the local economies of those 10 states. Plus, they added $11 billion to the Social Security Fund and $2.7 billion to the Medicare Fund.

Trump also says undocumented workers are stealing jobs from American citizens. Yet, it is difficult to name an American business that isn’t struggling to find workers. Just last week, a hospital daycare center in Baltimore had to close because it could not find daycare workers.

According to The New York Times, about 24% of workers in farming, fishing and forestry, along with 15% of construction workers in America, are undocumented. According to Scott Dance and Maria Luisa Paul, writing for The Washington Post, almost 40% of the construction workforce in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. are immigrants.

Trump wants to send these folks “back to where they came.” Yet, America desperately needs them and millions of new healthcare providers, construction and maintenance workers, nursing home workers, farm laborers and so on.

Instead of deportation, the Queens College researchers recommend fixing the legalization system for them that would “increase the productivity of undocumented workers, triggering further investment by employers” and “increase the economic contribution of the undocumented population by about 20%.”

A bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans recently came up with such a plan that would have dealt with the illegal crossings at the Mexican border and the undocumented immigrants living and working in America today.

Unfortunately, Trump ordered his congressional supporters to kill the bill because he didn’t want President Joe Biden to get credit for fixing a problem Trump needs as a campaign issue.

That’s the difference between a candidate who works to solve problems that would benefit our nation vs. a candidate who simply uses problems as campaign fodder and offers no solutions. The first candidate cares about America. The second cares about himself.

In November, we get to decide which candidate has America’s best interests.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His columns appear on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.