If all undocumented immigrants left the United States immediately…

economic studies across bipartisan and non-partisan research institutions (including the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the American Immigration Council, and the Penn Wharton Budget Model) project severe immediate shocks and long-term contraction across multiple sectors.

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I asked four AI programs to research the question of what would happen if all the undocumented left the US. Here is a summary of the consensus across the AI programs.

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1. Significant Drop in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Undocumented immigrants account for roughly 4% to 5% of the overall U.S. population and a higher proportion of the total civilian workforce (approximately 7 to 8 million workers). Economists estimate that removing this entire workforce would cause U.S. real GDP to contract between 4.2% and 7.4%. For scale, real GDP shrank by 4.3% during the 2007–2009 Great Recession. American Immigration Council

2. Acute Labor Shortages in Critical Sectors

Undocumented workers are heavily concentrated in specific industries that would experience immediate operational disruption:

Agriculture & Food Processing: Up to 15–20% of agricultural workers and meatpacking labor are undocumented.Unharvested crops, reduced livestock processing, and supply chain delays would cause immediate food shortages. American Immigration Council

Construction: Undocumented workers comprise 13–15% of the construction workforce, with higher proportions in key trades like roofing, drywall, and masonry. Housing construction and infrastructure projects would slow drastically or stall.

Hospitality & Food Service: Roughly 7–10% of workers in restaurants, hotels, and building maintenance would disappear, leading to reduced operating hours or business closures.

3. Inflation and Price Spikes

The immediate disruption to supply chains and production would create severe cost-push inflation. Grocery and dining prices would spike due to lower agricultural output and higher farm labor costs. Housing costs and repair services would rise as labor shortages delay construction. American Immigration Council

4. Reduction in Aggregate Demand and Consumer Spending

Undocumented immigrants are not only labor producers; they are also consumers who rent housing, purchase groceries, buy vehicles, and utilize retail services. Their abrupt departure would significantly lower overall consumer demand. This decrease in economic activity would reduce revenues for local businesses, leading to downstream layoffs of legal residents and U.S.-born workers in retail, finance, and management. Peterson Institute for International Economics+ 1

5. Fiscal and Tax Impacts

Lost Tax Revenue: Undocumented immigrants pay tens of billions of dollars annually in federal, state, and local taxes (including payroll, sales, and property taxes).

Social Security & Medicare Deficits: Undocumented workers contribute an estimated $13 billion to $23 billion annually into Social Security and Medicare via payroll taxes using ITINs or automatic withholdings without being eligible to claim benefits. Their departure would widen existing funding gaps in these trust funds.

Federal Deficits: The combined loss of income and sales tax revenue alongside reduced GDP growth would increase federal budget deficits.

6. Mixed Impacts on Wages

Authorized Low-Skill Workers: Some studies (such as the Penn Wharton Budget Model) note that a long-term reduction in the low-skill labor supply could exert upward pressure on wages for legal, low-skilled native workers in certain manual labor trades as employers compete for fewer workers. Penn Wharton Budget Model

High-Skill and General Workforce: Because overall economic output declines and businesses scale back operations, average wages across the middle- and high-skilled workforce are projected to stagnate or drop due to reduced business investment and lower economic scale. Penn Wharton Budget Model

The logical thing to do would be to safely integrate this population into our society. To help increase the younger segment of our population, but of course that is not the MAGA way. Instead, we embrace nationalism—- and our children and grandchildren will pay the price.