Has deportation of unauthorized persons made a positive impact on legal worker hiring and wages? Two studies conclude that the impact on native American workers is mixed, and sometimes adverse.  There is no evidence that native workers are getting a lot more jobs and a lot higher pay.

A February paper used a model which assumed that half of unauthorized workers would leave the workforce. It concluded overall that mass deportation gives native workers a small short-run wage bump, but lowers average native real wages in the long run.

In the short run, the capital stock is fixed. With fewer workers using the same capital, the model estimates very small short-term gains.  But it also predicts that more labor-saving capital will be invested.  That would reduce wages in a small way. Again,, this is the results of a model, not actual experience.

But native wages rise where (1) unauthorized workers are heavily concentrated and (2) where natives can substitute into those jobs. In some states, native farming/forestry wages rise much more: California 7.17%, South Carolina 6.69%, and Oregon 6.55%.  the model used an estimate that 35% of farm workers are unauthorized.

The paper: Cravino, Javier, Andrei A. Levchenko, Francesc Ortega, and Nitya Pandalai-Nayar. “The Economic Impact of Mass Deportations.” NBER Working Paper No. 34790, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2026.

A May paper looked at actual labor market behavior. In areas with large increases in ICE arrests, unauthorized employment fell, but U.S.-born workers did not step into those jobs.  The researchers looked at the complementarity of work in construction – that is, the effect of total employment say in residential construction when one labor component (common laborers, roofers, etc.) that are heaving – foreign-born fall short.  The researcher estimated that native construction workers with high school or less experienced a 3% decline in affected areas. The Washington Post summarized this paper as for every six unauthorized male workers displaced, one native worker with a high school degree or less also lost a job. They estimated job losses for native workers in farming, construction, and manufacturing.

The paper: Elizabeth Cox and Chloe N. East, “Labor Market Impacts of ICE Activity in Trump 2.0,” NBER Working Paper No. 35129, May 2026.