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A recent social media image claims that mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would increase strawberry prices while decreasing healthcare, housing, and property tax costs. This analysis examines each claim against peer-reviewed research, government data, and economic analyses to evaluate their accuracy. The evidence reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how immigrant labor and tax contributions function within the American economy.
The Food Price Claim: Strongly Supported by Evidence
The claim that deporting undocumented immigrants would increase food prices, specifically mentioning strawberries, finds substantial support in economic research and recent real-world data. Agricultural employment has already declined 6.5% from March to July 2025 following increased deportation enforcement, with fresh vegetable and meat prices rising 2% and 1.9% respectively during the April to July 2025 period (Economic Insights and Research Consulting, 2025). These early indicators suggest the predicted price increases are not merely theoretical but are already materializing in the marketplace.
The vulnerability of agriculture to immigration enforcement stems from the sector’s heavy dependence on undocumented labor. Undocumented workers comprise approximately 42% of crop farmworkers and at least 25% of all agricultural workers nationwide (Economic Insights and Research Consulting, 2025; Investigate Midwest, 2024). This concentration means that any significant reduction in this workforce creates immediate labor shortages that cannot be quickly remedied. The Peterson Institute for International Economics projects that mass deportation could lead to a 10% increase in food prices (Minnesota Reformer, 2024), while the National Immigration Law Center cites similar estimates from multiple economic analyses (NILC, 2025).
The agricultural sector faces particularly acute challenges because technological solutions remain inadequate for many harvesting tasks. Engineers have developed robots capable of identifying and picking fresh strawberries and apples, but these machines still cannot perform these tasks efficiently enough to compete with hand labor, particularly when considering the speed and dexterity required to reach through leaves and across branches to pick ripe fruit without causing bruising (American Enterprise Institute, 2025). The H-2A guest worker program, while available, remains inaccessible for many smaller farms and does not provide authorization for year-round tasks that many agricultural operations require.
Agricultural experts have issued stark warnings about the potential consequences of losing a substantial portion of the farmworker population. Mary Jo Dudley, director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, stated that if the farmworker population were reduced by half in a short period, the agriculture sector would likely collapse, as there are no available skilled workers to replace the current workforce (Minnesota Reformer, 2024). This assessment reflects the reality that agricultural work, despite being essential to the food supply, has experienced a steady decline in American workers willing to perform these labor-intensive tasks under the conditions and compensation typically offered.
The Healthcare Cost Claim: Contradicted by Evidence
The claim that healthcare costs would decrease following mass deportation fundamentally misrepresents the fiscal relationship between immigrants and the American healthcare system. Comprehensive research examining healthcare expenditures and contributions reveals that immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, represent a net financial benefit to the healthcare system rather than a burden.
A cross-sectional analysis of over 200,000 respondents to the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and the Current Population Survey found that immigrants contributed $58.3 billion more in healthcare premiums and taxes in 2017 than insurers and government paid for their care, with undocumented immigrants accounting for 89% of this surplus (Himmelstein et al., 2018). This finding directly contradicts the assumption underlying the claim that removing undocumented immigrants would reduce healthcare costs for American citizens. Multiple studies have confirmed that immigrants pay more into the health care system through taxes and health insurance premiums than they utilize, effectively helping to subsidize health care for U.S.-born citizens (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2025a).
The disparity in healthcare utilization between immigrants and U.S.-born individuals is substantial. Immigrants have significantly lower per capita healthcare expenditures than U.S.-born people, with average annual spending of $3,923 for immigrants compared to $6,577 for U.S.-born individuals, representing a difference of approximately 40% (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2025b). This lower utilization occurs despite immigrants paying into the system at rates comparable to or exceeding those of native-born citizens. Research further demonstrates that the direct cost of providing public health insurance to immigrants is less than that for the U.S. born, and immigrants’ health care utilization remains comparatively modest even when they gain coverage (Neeraj et al., 2022).
The tax contribution data further illuminates this dynamic. Undocumented immigrants pay roughly $96 to $97 billion in federal, state and local taxes annually, with approximately $59.4 billion going to federal programs (Factually.co, 2024). Despite these substantial contributions, undocumented immigrants remain ineligible for most federal healthcare coverage and account for less than 1% of total Medicaid spending. More than a third of undocumented immigrants’ tax dollars consist of payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare programs they cannot legally access (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2025a).
The implication of this evidence is clear: deporting undocumented immigrants would eliminate their net positive contribution to the healthcare system. Rather than decreasing healthcare costs for remaining citizens, mass deportation would likely shift a greater proportion of healthcare system costs onto U.S.-born citizens, potentially increasing rather than decreasing their healthcare expenses. The healthcare system currently benefits from immigrant workers’ tax contributions and premium payments that exceed their utilization of services, creating a subsidy that helps support care for the broader population.
The Housing Cost Claim: Contradicted by Evidence
The assertion that housing costs would decrease following mass deportation ignores the fundamental role that immigrant labor plays in housing construction and overlooks the existing severe shortage in housing supply. The evidence demonstrates that removing immigrant construction workers would exacerbate the housing crisis rather than alleviate it, leading to higher rather than lower housing costs.
Immigrants play an indispensable role in the construction industry, accounting for 34% of all construction trades workers in 2023, a proportion far exceeding their 18% share of the overall workforce (Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2024). This concentration is even more pronounced in certain states and specific trades. California, New Jersey, Texas, Maryland, and Nevada each have immigrant representation in construction trades ranging from 48% to 52% of the workforce. Specific occupations show even higher concentrations, with immigrants representing 61% of plasterers, 61% of drywall installers, 52% of roofers, and 51% of painters (Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2024). Approximately half of these construction workers are estimated to be undocumented, and the construction sector currently faces 248,000 unfilled positions despite high unemployment rates in some areas, with projections indicating the need for nearly 454,000 additional workers in 2025 to meet demand (Urban Institute, 2025).
Empirical research examining the effects of increased immigration enforcement provides compelling evidence that deportations reduce housing supply and increase prices. A study analyzing the staggered rollout of the Secure Communities program, which intensified immigration enforcement between 2008 and 2013, found that counties implementing stricter enforcement experienced large and persistent reductions in their construction workforce, decreased residential homebuilding, and subsequent increases in home prices (Howard et al., 2024; Reason Foundation, 2024). This research demonstrates a causal relationship between immigration enforcement and housing market outcomes, showing that the negative supply-side effects outweigh any potential demand-side benefits from reduced population.
The study further revealed that native-born and immigrant construction workers function as complements rather than substitutes in the labor market. When two construction positions were vacated due to deportation, typically only one would be filled by an American worker, resulting in net losses in the construction workforce (University of Utah, 2024). This complementarity occurs because lower-skilled positions typically held by undocumented workers, such as general labor, carpentry labor, and roofing crew positions, enable the higher-skilled positions more commonly held by U.S.-born workers, such as electricians and plumbers. When the lower-skilled positions remain unfilled, demand for the higher-skilled positions decreases, creating a cascading effect that slows overall construction activity.
The macroeconomic implications of mass deportation on housing are sobering. The Cato Institute estimates that deporting 10 million undocumented immigrants could result in a loss of nearly $1 trillion in U.S. housing wealth (National Immigration Forum, 2024). This projection accounts for both the reduction in construction capacity and the broader destabilizing effects on housing markets. The United States currently faces a housing shortage estimated at 3.7 million units, a deficit that has pushed home prices and rents to record highs. Mass deportations would worsen this shortage by removing the workers essential to building the housing supply needed to address this deficit, thereby deepening rather than resolving the housing affordability crisis.
The Property Tax Cost Claim: Contradicted by Evidence
The suggestion that property taxes would cost less following mass deportation misrepresents the tax contribution dynamics of undocumented immigrants and the fiscal realities facing state and local governments. The evidence demonstrates that undocumented immigrants are substantial net contributors to property tax revenues, and their removal would create fiscal shortfalls rather than opportunities for tax reduction.
Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022, representing a significant contribution to public revenues at all levels of government (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 2024). These tax payments include substantial property taxes paid both directly by homeowners and indirectly by renters, as property tax costs are incorporated into rental prices and passed through to tenants (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 2017). The scale of these contributions varies by state but is consistently substantial. In California alone, undocumented immigrants contributed $8.5 billion in state and local taxes in 2022, with 31% of these contributions coming through property taxes (California Budget & Policy Center, 2025). National estimates indicate that for every one million undocumented immigrants residing in the country, public services receive $8.9 billion in additional tax revenue (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 2024).
The effective tax rates paid by undocumented immigrants further challenge the claim that their departure would reduce tax burdens on other residents. Research consistently shows that undocumented immigrants pay taxes at rates equal to or exceeding those of many higher-income Americans. The average effective state and local tax rate for undocumented immigrants stands at 8%, compared to 5.4% for the top 1% of earners (American Immigration Council, 2016). This disparity occurs because undocumented immigrants pay a higher proportion of their income in consumption taxes and property taxes, which are less progressive than income taxes and do not offer the same opportunities for deductions and credits available to higher-income taxpayers.
The fiscal implications extend beyond raw revenue figures. When compared with native-born Americans, documented and undocumented immigrants combined pay more in taxes than they use in government benefits (Tax Policy Center, 2024). This net positive fiscal contribution means that immigrant tax payments help subsidize services used by the broader population. Removing this tax base would require either substantial cuts in government services or increases in tax rates for remaining residents to maintain current service levels. State and local governments, which rely heavily on property and sales taxes, would be particularly affected since undocumented immigrants contribute substantially to both revenue streams while having limited access to many state and local services due to their immigration status.
The claim that property taxes would decrease following mass deportation appears to rest on the assumption that reduced demand for housing and public services would enable tax reductions. However, this assumption fails to account for the reality that fixed costs for infrastructure, public safety, education systems, and other government functions do not decrease proportionally with population. Moreover, the economic disruption caused by the removal of workers from multiple sectors would likely increase rather than decrease demands on government services, as unemployment rises and economic activity contracts in affected regions.
Economic Context and Broader Implications
The disconnect between the claims in the social media image and the empirical evidence reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern economies function. The analysis treats immigrants purely as consumers who increase demand for services and resources, while ignoring their essential roles as producers, taxpayers, and contributors to economic growth. This zero-sum perspective fails to account for the ways in which removing workers from the economy simultaneously affects both supply and demand across multiple interconnected sectors.
Comprehensive economic analyses of mass deportation scenarios consistently predict substantial negative impacts on the broader economy. The Baker Institute estimates that mass deportations could reduce gross domestic product by 2.6% to 6.2% over the next decade, with potential price increases of 9.1% by 2028 (Baker Institute, 2025). These projections account for the cascading effects of labor shortages across agriculture, construction, hospitality, manufacturing, and transportation sectors, all of which employ significant numbers of undocumented workers. The economic modeling suggests that the removal of workers from these industries would not simply create job opportunities for U.S.-born workers, as labor markets do not function as simple substitution mechanisms. Instead, the evidence indicates that many positions vacated through deportation would remain unfilled, leading to reduced economic output and higher prices for goods and services.
The temporal dynamics of economic adjustment represent another critical consideration often overlooked in simplified analyses. Even if American workers could theoretically fill positions left vacant by deported workers over the long term, the transition period would likely involve years of economic disruption, reduced productivity, and higher costs. Agricultural cycles cannot pause for labor force adjustments, housing construction projects cannot be placed on hold indefinitely, and food supply chains require continuous operation. The immediate shock to these systems would create price spikes and supply disruptions that would harm American consumers and businesses long before any potential benefits of reduced immigrant population could materialize.
The evidence also challenges the implicit assumption that Americans would be willing to fill positions currently held by undocumented immigrants at prevailing wage rates. Agricultural work, construction labor, and food processing positions have experienced steady declines in native-born worker participation not primarily due to the presence of immigrant workers, but because these positions often offer difficult working conditions, low wages relative to other opportunities, and limited benefits or job security. The construction industry, despite offering wages approximately 80% higher than average nonfarm jobs, continues to face severe labor shortages (MSNBC, 2024). This suggests that the barrier to American worker participation is not primarily competition from immigrant workers but rather the nature of the work itself and the compensation structures that have evolved in these industries.
Conclusion
The examination of evidence regarding the economic impacts of mass deportation reveals that the social media claim is fundamentally flawed in three of its four assertions. While the prediction that food prices would increase finds strong support in economic research and real-world data, the claims that healthcare, housing, and property taxes would cost less are directly contradicted by extensive empirical research across multiple institutions and methodologies.
The food price projection accurately reflects the agricultural sector’s dependence on undocumented labor and the limited availability of technological or legal alternatives to replace this workforce. The predicted 10% increase in food prices aligns with economic modeling and is already finding preliminary support in observed price increases following recent deportation enforcement activities.
However, the healthcare cost claim inverts the actual fiscal relationship between immigrants and the healthcare system. Undocumented immigrants contribute tens of billions of dollars more to the healthcare system annually than they utilize, effectively subsidizing care for U.S.-born citizens. Their removal would eliminate this subsidy, likely increasing rather than decreasing healthcare costs for remaining residents.
The housing cost claim similarly contradicts the evidence, which demonstrates that immigrants, including undocumented workers, play essential roles in housing construction. Their removal would reduce housing supply in a market already facing severe shortages, leading to higher rather than lower housing costs. Empirical research examining previous enforcement initiatives confirms that increased deportations lead to reduced construction activity and increased housing prices.
The property tax claim misrepresents the tax contribution dynamics, ignoring the substantial property and other state and local taxes paid by undocumented immigrants. These tax contributions exceed their use of government services, and their removal would create fiscal shortfalls rather than opportunities for tax reduction.
The broader economic analyses suggest that mass deportation would result in reduced GDP growth, higher inflation, decreased tax revenues, and increased costs across multiple sectors of the economy. Rather than producing the mixed outcome suggested by the social media claim, the weight of evidence indicates that mass deportation would more likely increase costs in all four areas mentioned: food, healthcare, housing, and property taxes. This represents a case where political messaging has fundamentally inverted the actual economic relationships documented by rigorous research across multiple institutions and methodologies.
For policymakers and citizens evaluating immigration policy proposals, this analysis underscores the importance of grounding policy debates in empirical evidence rather than simplified assumptions about how complex economic systems function. The American economy has evolved over decades to incorporate immigrant workers into essential industries, and any dramatic change to immigration policy carries significant economic consequences that extend far beyond the immediate effects on the immigrant population itself.
References
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