immigration crackdown – New research finds ICE activity under Trump 2.0 reduced employment among “likely undocumented” workers and may have harmed U.S.-born workers.
A heavy enforcement push can ripple through an economy in ways that go beyond deportations—new research on ICE activity under the second Trump administration suggests exactly that, with a “chilling effect” showing up in hiring and job prospects.
The analysis. led by economist Chloe East of the University of Colorado Boulder. finds that when immigration enforcement intensified. workers most at risk—including many “likely undocumented” residents—appeared to pull back on employment.. Just as importantly for the broader political debate. East’s work also points to negative knock-on impacts for some U.S.-born workers. especially in industries that depend on undocumented labor.
The findings come as the administration’s immigration strategy shifted sharply after January 2025, targeting not only people connected to the criminal justice system but also expanding arrests in ways that brought enforcement deeper into everyday life.
East previously researched how deportations affect economic outcomes, including through the fear and uncertainty that can spread through immigrant communities.. But the new study. “Labor Market Impacts of ICE Activity in Trump 2.0. ” attempts to measure the labor market effects of enforcement more directly—using national enforcement data from the first nine months of the second Trump administration and comparing communities where enforcement was more intensive against those where it was less so.
The data used by researchers traces back to the Deportation Data Project. a nonprofit effort that obtained immigration enforcement information through the Freedom of Information Act.. The availability of that record matters because it allows analysts to examine how enforcement changed over time. and not only how many people were arrested.
The Deportation Data Project’s analysis shows that after President Trump took office in January 2025, ICE arrests more than quadrupled. But the shift was not only in volume. Federal enforcement also moved “deeper in the interior” of the country rather than remaining largely near the border.
Most striking was a change in the way arrests were carried out.. The group’s findings describe a major jump in “street arrests. ” or community arrests. occurring in places such as neighborhoods. worksites. immigration courts. and ICE check-in appointments.. The project notes that before 2025. most ICE arrests were not “arrests in the usual sense. ” but rather transfers of custody from jails or prisons—situations where people already held on criminal charges were then moved into immigration detention for civil immigration violations.
Under Trump 2.0, those custody-transfer arrests were also increased, but street arrests rose far more dramatically. The data indicates an increase of more than elevenfold in street arrests, helping explain why community arrests “seem like a new phenomenon.”
The broader sweep also extended to people without criminal convictions. The project reports an eightfold increase in arrests of noncitizens without a criminal conviction, a move that East characterized as unusually broad.
To immigrants living in the U.S.. the enforcement shift can feel indiscriminate. East says—creating the sense that leaving a home “for any reason” could trigger an ICE interaction and potentially lead to detention or deportation.. In her view, the economic consequence is not limited to those removed from communities.. The larger effect can come from what happens to labor market behavior among those who remain.
The “chilling effect” shows up in the employment patterns the study examines. East and co-author Elizabeth Cox use enforcement data alongside employment and labor statistics from federal agencies to estimate impacts on two groups of workers between 20 and 64.
One group is U.S.-born workers. The second is a category the researchers describe as “likely undocumented,” defined as foreign-born individuals with at most a high school education who work in sectors where undocumented labor is overrepresented.
To isolate immigration enforcement impacts from other economic forces, the paper employs a difference-in-differences approach—comparing how workers in heavily targeted areas fared over time against workers in less targeted locations, focusing on the first nine months of the administration.
For “likely undocumented” workers who remained in the U.S., East’s results show a meaningful reduction in employment, described as a significant 4% drop. She attributes much of the effect to men, noting that men comprised the overwhelming majority of ICE arrests in the studied time period.
When the study turns to U.S.-born workers, it finds no positive labor market effects overall.. East says that. in fact. increased ICE activity appears to have harmed employment prospects for U.S.-born workers—especially in sectors heavily reliant on undocumented labor.. The most affected U.S.-born workers. the researchers find. are men with at most a high-school education working in industries that depend most on undocumented labor and experienced the sharpest enforcement-linked arrests and deportations.
East also frames the results in terms of labor market substitution and complementarity.. Her research suggests the labor market does not behave like a simple zero-sum competition. where immigrants automatically displace native workers for a fixed number of jobs.. Instead, the study indicates that enforcement-linked declines in undocumented labor can correspond with fewer jobs for U.S.-born workers.
In her account, for every six fewer undocumented workers in a local labor market, there is one fewer U.S.-born worker employed there. The implication runs counter to a common argument that immigration enforcement should automatically improve outcomes for native workers by freeing up jobs.
East points to job characteristics that make those roles difficult for many U.S.-born workers to replace.. She describes how undocumented workers often take lower-paid, more dangerous, more physically difficult, more seasonal, and less reliable jobs.. Employers. in her view. are not positioned to raise wages to attract U.S.-born workers into those roles. which can leave businesses short-staffed rather than simply shifting employment between groups.
That dynamic shows up in her construction example. If a construction company cannot find enough site laborers because of ICE activity, East says, it may end up building fewer homes and fewer buildings overall—and hire less broadly, including hiring less U.S.-born labor.
While the study’s emphasis is on labor market complementarity, East acknowledges that some sectors could still be more zero-sum.. She points to historical research—including work on the Chinese Exclusion Acts—where certain groups of workers benefited even as the broader economy suffered.. Still, East says her results fit a larger pattern found across studies of mass deportations.
The labor market is only part of the overall economic picture, the research also suggests.. Undocumented immigrants are consumers as well as workers, and their spending can feed into demand across local economies.. They can also contribute tax revenue and potentially affect the cost of goods and services through their labor.. East says she is working on additional research to explore those pricing and consumer-side effects. noting that undocumented immigrants make up a significant share of the labor force in industries such as food service. agriculture. childcare. and construction.
The study is also a working paper, meaning it has not been through peer review. Even so, East argues its results align with broader research on deportations across different time periods.
Mass deportations, she says, tend to harm not only the immigrant workers targeted by enforcement, but also U.S.-born workers and the labor market more generally. In her view, the recurring finding appears across multiple eras of U.S. enforcement policy.
The research also sparked a response from the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement.. A spokesperson rejected the economic framing of the study’s conclusions. saying removing “criminals” from communities makes areas safer for business owners and customers.. The department’s statement focused on the safety rationale for enforcement rather than disputing the study’s labor market methodology.
Yet enforcement policy itself has been changing, with new enforcement patterns emerging after high-profile killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. After those deaths, the administration appeared to shift its ICE enforcement approach nationwide.
The Deportation Data Project’s most recent analysis reports that enforcement nationwide fell meaningfully. with street arrests declining to roughly their September 2025 levels.. The group also cautioned that it is unclear whether the decline will persist. noting that future appropriations tied to a large bill could allow ICE to hire more officers and expand detention capacity.
East’s new labor market research focuses on the first nine months of the second Trump administration. while she is now analyzing what the later enforcement pattern may mean for employment behavior.. She says arrests that might create the biggest chilling effects appear to be dropping. but she also warns it may be difficult to reverse fear-driven economic impacts quickly once they take hold.
For policymakers and voters. the central political question raised by the study is whether the administration’s approach is likely to generate economic gains for U.S.-born workers—or whether the costs may be broader than expected.. East’s research suggests the answer may depend less on theoretical job competition and more on how enforcement changes day-to-day decisions. business staffing. and the risk calculus of workers trying to earn a living.
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