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Here’s what Trump’s deportation plans could mean for Iowans
Tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants are working across Iowa, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to the Iowa economy
Dec. 8, 2024 5:30 am, Updated: Dec. 9, 2024 8:02 am
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A mass removal of undocumented workers could lead to a tighter labor market in Iowa, higher wage rates and higher production costs, potentially leading to higher prices for goods and services, according to an Iowa State University economist.
Iowa could lose $151.6 million in taxes and tens of thousands of Iowa children could be separated from a parent if President-elect Donald Trump makes good on his promise of mass deportation.
Or the plan could be too unwieldy, logistically burdensome and costly to execute in full. Either way, undocumented immigrants in Iowa and their advocates say they are preparing for the worst.
Trump has vowed to conduct "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.“ He has tapped immigration hard-liners to serve in his cabinet, including Tom Homan to serve as “border czar” and Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to serve as his Homeland Security secretary.
"It's not going to be a massive sweep of neighborhoods," Homan said in an interview with Fox News. "It's not going to be massive raids. It's going to be a targeted enforcement operation."
Homan, though, warned that does not mean deportations of other undocumented migrants living in the country “is off the table.”
“If you're in a country illegally, you've got a problem,” he told Fox News.
An estimated more than 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, according to Pew Research. There are roughly 52,300 undocumented immigrants living in Iowa, or about 1.6 percent of the state’s population, according to estimates from the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration advocacy group.
Vice-president-elect JD Vance has suggested 1 million people could be deported each year. Trump deported about 1.5 million people during his first term. Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration was on pace to match those numbers, in addition to millions turned away at the U.S.-Mexico border during the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than 3 million people were deported during Democratic former President Barack Obama’s eight years in office, more than any other U.S. president.
The Gazette spoke with an economist, Iowa business leader, immigration attorney and legal expert as well as with leaders and advocates in Iowa’s immigrant community to get a sense of the potential impact of Trump’s plans on Iowa families, communities and businesses.
What’s the reaction from Iowa immigrants to Trump’s plans?
Tens of thousands of undocumented migrants are working across Iowa, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to the Iowa economy.
A 2022 report by the American Immigration Council about immigrants living in Iowa estimates that undocumented residents made up about 2.4 percent of the state’s workforce and paid $354 million in taxes, with $151.6 million going to local and state governments. Those immigrants spent a total of $1.3 billion, the report found.
An estimated 26.2 percent of the state’s immigrant population are undocumented residents.
Rogelio Lagunas, a member of the Cedar Rapids Latino community, said many Iowa immigrants lack criminal records and know their rights and the process involved if detained, which reduces the fear of mass deportation.
“We know if people is not a criminal, if they got detained, they got to go to through the immigration process. They got to go to immigration court,” Lagunas said. “So we're not afraid. The community is not afraid about mass deportation,” he said of comments made by Trump’s team.
Advocates and legal experts, however, said there’s no guarantee that undocumented migrants without criminal convictions would not be ensnared in deportation efforts.
While Homan has said undocumented migrants deemed to be national security or public safety threats will be a priority, he has also suggested workplace raids that took place under former President W. Bush’s second term — like the 2008 raid that occurred at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville — could return.
Lagunas stressed that while the community is not overly worried about mass deportations, they are concerned about the emboldening of racist behavior and increased bullying and discrimination against people of color.
Trump escalated his anti-immigration rhetoric on the campaign trail, saying during a rally in Iowa that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of America, echoing the rhetoric of white supremacists.
The president-elect also has falsely claimed that immigrants are “coming from prisons, they’re coming from jail, they’re from mental institutions and insane asylums.”
Lagunas, who immigrated to Iowa, encouraged the community to assert their rights and speak out against racism.
Jairo Muñoz of Iowa City has been a U.S. citizen for 35 years. Originally from Colombia, he moved to the country 42 years ago to pursue a master's and PhD in engineering.
Like Lagunas, Muñoz said he worries about Trump stoking anti-immigrant sentiment and discrimination and declining support for diversity and inclusion efforts.
“It is the impact on the fiber of the community, of the people on how now it's OK to mistreat others,” Muñoz told The Gazette. “Now how diversity and inclusion is a sinful couple of words we cannot say. We cannot do it, we cannot act on it. That is becoming the new fiber of our society, and that is what really concerns me.”
He said he does not believe mass deportations are likely.
“Mass deportations will not be possible in the same way that it was not possible to build a wall and have Mexico pay for the wall,” he said. “… I don't think there will be mass deportations. I think (Trump) is doing what he always does. He says things to reach down to the emotions of people and to get other individuals in the community to follow his lead. And that is what I'm really concerned about.”
How are families, immigration advocacy groups preparing?
Immigration advocacy groups say they are preparing for families with mixed-status, where some members are undocumented and some are U.S. citizens, to potentially be separated from each other.
The American Immigration Council estimates that up to 41,200 Iowa residents live with at least one undocumented family member, and nearly 26,000 Iowa children who are U.S. citizens live with at least one undocumented parent.
“Separating family members would lead to tremendous emotional stress and could also cause economic hardship for many of these mixed-status families who might lose their breadwinners,” according to the nonprofit, nonpartisan group.
Escucha Mi Voz hosted an informational meeting last month for immigrants at the Catholic Worker House in Iowa City to talk about Trump’s plans for mass deportation and what families could do to prepare.
Maria Ayala, who spoke at the meeting, told The Gazette that many of the people who attended are afraid of being separated from their families and they don’t know how to protect themselves.
“We let people know to get together all of their documents, and we invite them to these meetings so that they can prepare,” Ayala told The Gazette in Spanish. “We’re telling them to talk to their families about it. Separation is difficult, especially for small children who don’t understand the situation.”
Ninoska Campos, another leader with Escucha Mi Voz who spoke at the meeting, agreed that separation is one of the biggest worries people have, adding, in Spanish, that “people are feeling confused, frustrated, afraid, especially for their kids. They’re afraid of leaving their kids.”
Ayala and Campos said Escucha Mi Voz and the Catholic Worker House are planning additional meetings, with input from lawyers who can share information about what rights immigrants have.
Campos said the meetings also serve to gather the community. She said many immigrants are relying on their faith in God and on each other.
“I fight for the Latin American community. I fight for the immigrant community, because I’m a mother of a family, I’m an immigrant, I’m Latina. I have my family here. I fight for my people,” Campos said, in Spanish. “It’s good to be afraid, but at the same time, we have to stop feeling fearful because we have to fight. We need to fight.”
What impact could deportations have on Iowa’s economy?
Chad Hart, an economist at Iowa State University, estimated that Iowa has between 35,000 and 40,000 undocumented workers, primarily in food processing and construction.
“If these workers are removed from the labor force, it's going to have basically an indirect impact across all of Iowa's industries,” Hart said. “Because right now, the Iowa economy is still a growing economy. We're adding jobs, but over the past few years, what we've also found is that we don't have the labor force to fill all the jobs.
“So pulling out undocumented workers is going to shrink that pile even more and make that labor market that much tighter, which is going to lead to higher wage rates, higher cost of production, and ultimately, probably higher prices for the goods and services we produce here.”
Seasonal industries like agriculture and construction rely heavily on migrant labor. And a labor shortage could add to existing financial challenges in an agricultural market that is facing a downturn, with the USDA forecasting a decrease in net farm income for 2024.
A 2012 USDA Economic Research Service study used a simulation analysis to estimate the impact a 5.8-million-person reduction in the number of unauthorized workers — agricultural and non-agricultural. Results of the study indicated that the negative economic effects generated by the departure of a significant portion of the labor force outweighed the positive effects on the wages of U.S.-born workers and other permanent residents employed in lower paying occupations.
Hart expects the same under President-elect Trump’s planned immigration crackdown. The cost of removing seasonal workers could lead to more losses than gains, as it raises production costs and challenges the ability of employers to compete, he said.
Hart noted that immigrant populations have filled lower-paying jobs in rural areas, contributing to business development. The potential loss of immigrant workers could slow the growth and revitalization of rural communities.
He pointed to Postville, where a kosher meatpacking plant became the site of the nation’s largest immigration raid at the time.
Almost 400 undocumented workers — roughly 20 percent of the town’s population — were arrested at the plant during the raid conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Hart said raids leave lasting scars on rural communities that “can run deep and last a long time.”
While the plant reopened under new ownership in 2009 and the town’s population has slowly climbed, the negative impacts of the raid can still be felt today, said Sonia Parras Konrad, an immigration attorney in Des Moines who represented more than 200 clients pro bono who were affected by the Postville raid.
Parras Konrad said there still are pending cases related to the raid 16 years later.
She said the raid destroyed the local economy, drove away businesses and disrupted families, including U.S. citizens and legal residents. The community disruption and social strain were significant, Parras Konrad said.
“It was a nightmare. I mean, we had children in the streets without being able to return home,” Parras Konrad said. “People gathered in the (local Catholic) church … sheltering people that were left vulnerable because of the raid, including U.S. citizens. But in reality, that created such a social and financial strain on the schools and support services and everybody else.”
Federal officials said they spent more than $5 million on the raid, according to the Associated Press.
Joe Murphy, president of the Iowa Business Council, said Iowa employers are concerned about the potential impact of mass deportations on Iowa's workforce, which has seen a decline in labor force participation and employment over the past year.
The nonprofit council advocates for 22 of Iowa’s largest businesses, including Alliant Energy, Casey’s, Corteva Agriscience, John Deere, Fareway, Hy-Vee, MercyOne, MidAmerican Energy, Pella, Principal, UnityPoint Health and Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa.
Murphy said Iowa Business Council members support comprehensive immigration reform to attract and retain workers.
“So workforce continues to be the top priority that the Iowa Business Council is focusing on, trying to make sure that we're a welcoming and attractive place for new Iowans to come in to our state, but also to retain Iowans as well in Iowa,” he told The Gazette. “Iowa has long been a beacon of hope and opportunity for immigrants across the world, and we think that that's a good thing. With respect to proposals on mass deportations, I think that that's something that we'll have to evaluate and see what the actual policy is.”
How would mass deportations work?
A memo from the American Civil Liberties Union earlier this year laid out the mechanics of a large-scale mass deportation effort. Deporting immigrants who lack legal status on the scale Trump envisions would mean arresting millions of individuals; placing them in proceedings before immigration judges; litigating those cases in court, including appeals; and then removing them from the United States.
It’s a colossal task with constitutional and statutory requirements at each step, said Kate Melloy Goettel, a University of Iowa law professor specializing in immigration and civil rights law.
Identifying, arresting, detaining and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants will require resources and personnel that the current immigration enforcement system lacks, Goettel said.
The American Immigration Council estimated deporting 1 million immigrants per year would incur an annual cost of $88 billion.
Securing enough detention space to hold large numbers of immigrants during deportation proceedings will be a major logistic hurdle. And transporting and deporting millions of people will require a massive effort that the government may struggle to coordinate and execute effectively, Goettel said.
A massive deportation effort will burden an already heavily backlogged legal system. As of the end of October, more than 3.7 million active cases were pending in U.S. immigration court. Immigration courts closed 900,000 cases from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. At that pace, it would take immigration courts until 2028 just to clear all current pending cases, according to an Axios analysis of TRAC data.
An influx of millions of new cases would exacerbate existing delays, extending the backlog into 2040 at the current pace, according to an Axios review.
Trump advisers have discussed the possibility of expanding expedited removal.
Currently, expedited removal is only used to remove people who are apprehended within 14 days of entering the country and are within 100 miles of the U.S. border. The incoming administration has forecast that they plan to expand expedited removal to apply to those who illegally entered the country within two years and to anywhere in the U.S., Goettel said.
It applies to noncitizens who lack valid entry documents. It does not apply to lawful permanent residents, those granted asylum, refugees or others with legal status.
A noncitizen put in expedited removal proceedings has no right to a hearing or appeal and does not appear before an immigration judge for a hearing or further review of an administrative determination that they should be removed.
Trump also has indicated that he will declare a national emergency and use the military to assist in deportations. He has floated invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove immigrants quickly — efforts Goettel said would face legal obstacles and pushback.
The law allows the president to detain, relocate or deport noncitizens from a country considered an enemy of the U.S. during wartime, or when a foreign government threatens or undertakes an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” against U.S. territory. It was last used to intern Japanese Americans during World War II, for which Congress, presidents and the courts have apologized.
“We look back on that with shame and as a tragic mistake. And so it would be a real stretch legally to for the incoming administration to use the Alien Enemies Act in this way,” she said.
Federal law also places legal limitations on the military's involvement in direct law enforcement actions. U.S. Code contains provisions that allow U.S. military personnel, including active-duty forces and federalized National Guard forces, to assist with law enforcement without directly participating in core law enforcement activities.
A declaration of a national emergency could provide additional resources for military assistance to law enforcement, but would not permit participation in core law enforcement activities, such as arrests, searches and seizures, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Goettel said Trump’s administration could possibility use military bases and planes for detention and deportation.
Federal law also allows the president to request — but not require — that governors deploy their states’ National Guard forces to perform certain federal missions.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds earlier this year deployed state law enforcement officers and National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas to assist authorities there with immigration enforcement.
It was the third time Reynolds has deployed Iowans to assist local authorities with border security.
However, the legal and logistic barriers to carrying out mass deportations on the scale proposed by Trump are substantial and would likely face significant challenges and delays, Goettel said.
What should concerned immigrant families and individuals be doing?
Immigrants have varying degrees of due process rights under the Fifth Amendment, with long-term residents having more protections than recent arrivals, said Kate Melloy Goettel, and University of Iowa law professor specializing in immigration and civil rights law.
The Fourth Amendment also provides some privacy and search/seizure protections for immigrants, limiting how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can conduct arrests and detentions. Goettel noted undocumented immigrants do not have to talk to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents without legal counsel.
She and Des Moines immigration attorney Sonia Parras Konrad stressed the importance of Iowa immigrants, regardless of their legal status, understanding their legal rights. Goettel said immigrant families and individuals concerned about the new administration’s immigration policies should consult the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice’s "Know Your Rights" resources in English and Spanish.
Parras Konrad said she is also advising her clients to:
- Establish a family preparedness plan: Identify a trusted friend or family member who can care for children in the event of a parent's detention or deportation; prepare a power of attorney document to grant this caretaker the legal authority to make decisions for the children; and ensure the caretaker has access to important documents like birth certificates, medical records and emergency contact information.
- Secure financial and legal affairs: Open a bank account that the caretaker can access if needed; gather important financial documents like mortgage/rent information, bills and account numbers; consult an attorney to create a will or other legal arrangements to protect assets and ensure the care of dependents.
- Carry a know-your-rights card and instruct family members on how to use it if approached by immigration authorities.
- Document any interactions with law enforcement or immigration officials, including names, badge numbers and details of the encounter.
- Identify support systems and resources: Connect with local immigrant advocacy groups, legal aid organizations and community leaders who can provide guidance and assistance.
- Research and compile a list of emergency contacts, including immigration attorneys, consulates and support hotlines.
- Become familiar with the process for obtaining a bond or requesting a hearing before an immigration judge.
- Maintain open communication with children: Have honest, age-appropriate conversations with children about the possibility of family separation and what to do in an emergency. Ensure they know how to contact the designated caretaker and other trusted adults, and reassure them steps are being taken to protect the family and that they are not alone.
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com
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