ICE Enforcement Reduced Immigrant Work

A new NBER working paper finds that areas with larger increases in ICE arrests during the second Trump administration saw declines in work among likely undocumented immigrants who remained in the U.S. The study finds no positive spillovers to U.S.‑born workers and even harm to U.S.‑born workers in immigrant‑heavy sectors, using an event‑study and difference‑in‑differences design. — This undercuts the claim that aggressive interior immigration enforcement helps native employment and highlights how enforcement can shrink local labor supply and damage sectors reliant on immigrant labor.