Stephen Miller Lied About Migrant Jobs Going to American Workers

The lie at the heart of Trump’s immigration crackdown is now peer-reviewed fact. Stephen Miller’s repeated claim that removing undocumented workers would open jobs for American workers has been decisively debunked by a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Economists Elizabeth Cox and Chloe N. East of the University of Colorado Boulder analyzed labor and ICE arrest data from October 2023 through October 2025. Their rigorous methodology compared areas hit hard by sudden spikes in ICE arrests to those spared, isolating the true effect of enforcement from other economic factors.

The result? No job gains for U.S.-born workers in agriculture, construction, manufacturing, or anywhere else. Instead, a “chilling effect” slashed employment by 4 percent among likely undocumented workers who remained — not arrested or deported but too scared to show up for work. Among men, who make up over 90 percent of ICE’s targets, the drop was even sharper: 5 percent fewer employed and two fewer hours worked per week.

This chilling effect is far worse than during the Obama administration’s deportation campaigns. Where previously 2.3 workers stopped working for each arrest, now six do — a sign of how indiscriminate and terrifying ICE’s tactics have become under Trump’s second term.

The damage doesn’t stop with undocumented workers. For every six undocumented men who quit working, one U.S.-born man with a high school degree or less loses his job too. The sectors hit hardest by enforcement are the same ones where blue-collar American men have been pummeled: construction, agriculture, manufacturing.

Why are American workers losing jobs when undocumented workers disappear? Because they aren’t interchangeable competitors; they are complements on the same team. Many undocumented men work as laborers, supporting foremen, framers, and other roles held by U.S.-born workers. When the laborers vanish, the entire crew slows or shuts down. Employers don’t raise wages to attract replacements. They cut back on hiring.

The Republican Party’s core justification for massive new ICE funding — that deportations create opportunity by freeing jobs and raising wages for Americans — is now proven false. The study found no wage increases and no significant employment gains for native-born workers. Instead, enforcement shrinks local economies and quietly pushes American men without college degrees into unemployment.

Meanwhile, Congress keeps funneling billions into ICE and CBP, despite more than $100 billion in unused funds from earlier appropriations. The political theater of “law and order” enforcement has a real human cost: lost jobs, broken communities, and shattered livelihoods.

It’s time to call out these lies for what they are. Deportations don’t help American workers; they hurt them. The promise that mass deportations will equal jobs for gringos was always a con. Now we have the data to prove it.