How Trump's immigration policies could impact Colorado industries
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President-elect Trump's policy proposals targeting undocumented immigrants could prove consequential for key industries in Colorado.
The big picture: The incoming president's policies, especially mass deportation efforts, could deepen the restaurant industry's labor shortage, dampen a construction field critical to building more housing and narrow the agricultural sector's hiring pool.
Why it matters: With fewer workers to carry out labor in these sectors, consumers might face higher construction prices and costly grocery bills, Colorado Law School professor P. Deep Gulasekaram tells us.
- The construction industry, which generated $26 billion toward the state GDP in 2022, already faces staggering job losses as metro Denver's growth slows.
By the numbers: Roughly 1.4% of Colorado's 5.8 million residents are undocumented, according to a 2021 report from the state's labor department.
- About 10% of the state's population is foreign-born, though they make up 11% of the state's labor force, per the American Immigration Council (AIC).
Caveat: Sophie Shea, policy analyst at the left-leaning Colorado Fiscal Institute, says she couldn't specify the percentage of undocumented people versus lawful immigrants who work in those industries.
What they're saying: Undocumented immigrants pay taxes, and their mass exodus could translate to billions less in tax revenue for state and federal governments, Gulasekaram tells us.
Stunning stat: Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, tells us between half and three-quarters of undocumented immigrants pay income taxes through withholding or filing returns.
- Meanwhile, he says that all undocumented immigrants pay at least some taxes — most obviously sales taxes.
Yes, but: Gulasekaram says the effect of losing so many undocumented people in Colorado won't be as acute as in California, Texas and Florida, where they comprise a far larger percentage of the population.
Between the lines: Gulasekaram also noted the human toll, given the roughly 4 million mixed-status families in the country. He says Trump's policies could lead to those family's incomes plummeting and could lead more families to rely on public benefits.
- "I think that one of the other things that we have to be ready to do is to watch millions of American families go below the poverty line," Gulasekaram says.
The other side: Harvard economist George Borjas has argued immigrants in the U.S. lead to lower wages for some American workers, suggesting they compete for so-called "low-skill" jobs, though his claim has been disputed.
- Trump's allies have cited Borjas' research to push his immigration policies.
Zoom out: Nationwide, undocumented workers make up 13.7% and 12.7% of the construction and agriculture workforce, respectively, per the AIC.
Reality check: Most U.S. voters say undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs that American citizens don't want, according to an October Pew Research report.