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I want to mention that reason only visits those who welcome it.

Let’s look at the reasoning behind Trump’s agenda to have all 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States deported. And yet while in office he managed to deport only 1 million compared to the four million Barack Obama deported in his first term alone.

The projected cost to taxpayers if Trump got his wish of deporting these 11 million would come to $300 billion due to the cost of an estimated 95,944 chartered flights to accomplish his threats.  Enormous holding facilities near the border — paid for by the 99% of us taxpayers, the 1% , of course — would have no investment since they are wealthy enough to hire lawyers who can hide their money in offshore holdings. Remember how Trump bragged about only paying a little over $700 in taxes? I don’t know about you, but we’re stuck paying a lot more in federal taxes.

Keep in mind that half of all farm workers in the United States are undocumented immigrants.  Just a 50% decrease in that farm labor supply could result in a minimum of an increase of 21% in the prices of hand picked crops. Some 350,000 undocumented immigrants work in health care. 145,000 are child care workers, personal aides and home health care aids. Plus more than 163,000 are employed as cleaners and housekeepers, babysitters and yard help. Without these, Trump’s talk of massive deportation will eradicate the quality of life we have in this country grown to expect.

One quarter of the workers who process meat, fish and poultry are estimated to lack legal status. One in five undocumented workers, 1.4 million are employed in construction. With that industry already facing a shortage of 500,000 workers, Trump’s deportation scheme would grind the construction of new homes to a halt.

Who out there is willing to work in excessive heat, bending over to provide our strawberries or  be a part of the work at Quality Pork?

These undocumented pay $1.7 billion a year in Social Security and yet are not eligible for benefits. They pay  $35.3 billion in taxes ( a lot more than most of the 1%) and as many as five worked at the forefront during the Covid 19 pandemic.

These people want to work, and it is a lot more expensive now than when my grandparents came to this country. By virtue of the fact that these folks want to stay here and work is the reason behind why they do not commit the crimes that Trumps all too often accuses them of.

Roberta Mistretta

Austin, MN