Paying the Price: A Resource Guide to Trump and Miller’s Mass Deportation Costs
Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s mass deportation machine, fueled by a combined $240 billion in congressional funding, has become a runaway operation with no accountability and no oversight. Congressional Republicans funded this agenda while cutting Medicaid, food assistance, and other programs millions of American families depend on. Meanwhile, families are being torn apart by raids, detentions, and deportations, and the damage doesn’t stop there. The consequences ripple across the entire economy: rural hospitals are closing, grocery and construction prices are climbing, and small businesses are folding as both immigrants and U.S.-born workers lose their jobs.
American families are taking the hit at every turn, while Congress turbocharges funding for deportation operations that terrorize communities. The cost of this anti-immigrant agenda isn’t hurting only immigrant communities, it is hurting everyone — and Americans across the political spectrum are rejecting it in growing numbers.
For more, see America’s Voice’s related fact sheets below:
Trump and Miller’s Mass Deportation Machine Is Destroying Economic Stability Across America
- American families will pay an additional $2,150 a year by the end of 2028 because of mass deportation.
- A peer-reviewed study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that as ICE enforcement intensified, the formal childcare sector lost capacity nationwide — centers reduced enrollment, closed classrooms, and in some cases shut down entirely.
- Essentials take the hardest hit: food prices are expected to increase by 14.5% and construction prices by 6.1%.
- The research confirms what facilities are already experiencing. One in five healthcare support workers in the U.S. is an immigrant, according to an April, 2026 MIT study. That research also found that increases in immigration consistently correlate with lower elderly mortality rates.
Trump-Miller’s Wrong Priorities: Driving Up Costs
- A national NBER study found that for every six undocumented workers who lose their jobs to ICE enforcement, one U.S.-born worker with a high school degree or less loses theirs too.
- In Idaho, a regional economist found mass deportation would cut dairy output by 45%, slash agricultural production by 22.5%, and shrink the state’s gross product by more than $5.1 billion.
- The Brookings Institution found the federal immigration enforcement surge could shrink the nation’s workforce by more than 2.4 million people and slash GDP by more than 7% by 2028.
Trump’s Choice: Gutting Programs for American Families While Funding Mass Deportation
- $1 trillion in cuts from Medicaid and CHIP over the next decade, with more than 300 rural hospitals now at risk of closure.
- $186 billion cut from SNAP through 2034, putting more than 5 million participants — including 800,000 children — at risk of losing benefits under new work requirements.
- Families whose coverage is terminated could see medical debt rise by as much as $22,280, part of an estimated 5.4 million additional Americans headed into medical debt.
Trump-Miller Want a Blank Check for ICE and Border Patrol — Americans Won’t Be Distracted
- A majority of Americans say the government is spending too much on ICE, including a plurality of Fox News viewers, as the agency’s budget has ballooned from less than $10 billion to more than $80 billion in a single year.
- Americans overwhelmingly demand accountability and transparency reforms: 84% support requiring full criminal background checks for all ICE agents, and 86% support body cameras.
- 60% of Americans are now unfavorable towards ICE, its highest unfavorability since Trump took office this term, and 62% say ICE uses excessive force.
- 58% of Americans believe Congress should withhold funding from ICE until the agency changes its approach — even if that means partially shutting down DHS.
The bottom line: The Trump-Miller mass deportation machine is deeply unpopular, and it’s making Americans poorer, weaker, and less safe. Congressional Republicans have handed this agenda blank check after blank check, with zero accountability and zero regard for the toll it’s taking on American families and communities.