Shortly after the 2025 inauguration, neighborhoods like Little Village in Chicago, normally bustling, fell eerily quiet as people stayed home amid warnings of large ICE raids. That fear — a “chilling effect” that kept undocumented immigrants from working, shopping, and otherwise participating in local economies — is a central finding in new research on the Trump administration’s intensified immigration enforcement.
What changed
Researchers now have detailed enforcement data thanks to the Deportation Data Project, a nonprofit that used FOIA requests to assemble national records of ICE activity. That record shows a dramatic shift in 2025: overall ICE arrests more than quadrupled compared with prior years, and the character of enforcement shifted sharply away from transfers from jails to immigration detention toward much more aggressive community or “street” arrests in neighborhoods, workplaces, courthouses and ICE check-ins. Community arrests rose by more than elevenfold, and arrests of noncitizens without criminal convictions increased roughly eightfold.
Why the shift matters
The change wasn’t only about physically removing people. Economists argue the larger effect comes from the fear and uncertainty created by widespread community enforcement. Undocumented workers who remain in place often curtail their activity to avoid interactions with authorities, which reduces labor supply, local consumption, and the functioning of industries that rely on immigrant labor.
New empirical evidence
University of Colorado Boulder economist Chloe East and co-author Elizabeth Cox used the Deportation Data Project’s enforcement records combined with Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data to estimate the labor-market effects of the first nine months of the second Trump administration. Using a difference-in-differences approach — comparing places with intense enforcement to places with less — they provide what they call the first national causal estimates for this period.
Key findings
– Likely undocumented workers who remained in the U.S. reduced employment by about 4 percent, with the effect concentrated among men (who made up the large majority of arrests).
– For U.S.-born workers overall there were no employment or wage gains. In places and sectors hit hardest by ICE activity — industries that rely heavily on undocumented labor — U.S.-born workers, especially men with a high-school education or less, were harmed.
– The study estimates that when six undocumented workers stop working in a local market, there is roughly one fewer U.S.-born worker employed there.
Interpretation
These results add to a substantial literature suggesting that immigrants often complement native workers and help industries expand, rather than simply displacing native workers in a zero-sum contest. Undocumented workers disproportionately fill lower-paid, seasonal, or hazardous roles that employers usually don’t fill with native-born labor even if wages rose. When immigrant labor dries up, firms may curtail production — for example building fewer homes — and hire less overall, including fewer native-born workers.
Exceptions and historical context
There are historically specific cases where exclusion helped particular groups (for example, some 19th-century studies find white miners benefited when Chinese labor was restricted). But broad evidence across eras tends to show mass deportations and crackdowns have negative economic effects for both immigrants and many native workers.
Limitations and next steps
East and Cox’s paper is a working paper and has not completed peer review. It focuses on the labor-market channel during the administration’s early months; additional effects through consumption, taxation, prices of goods and services, and longer-term dynamics are being studied. Undocumented workers are also consumers and taxpayers, and federal analyses suggest they contribute to public revenues.
Policy response and recent changes
The Department of Homeland Security responded to inquiries by framing enforcement as public-safety driven and arguing removals improve conditions for business and customers. Meanwhile, after high-profile incidents in Minneapolis, ICE activity nationwide fell from the peak levels observed in 2025. The Deportation Data Project notes enforcement declined to roughly September 2025 levels, but cautions that funding and hiring could restore or expand capacity.
Bottom line
The available data from the first months of the Trump administration’s intensified immigration enforcement indicate the policy produced not only large increases in arrests but also broader economic harm through a chilling effect on immigrant labor. That disruption appears to have reduced employment among likely undocumented workers and, contrary to the idea that deportations free up jobs for native-born workers, it appears to have depressed opportunities for some U.S.-born workers in the same local labor markets and industries. Researchers are continuing to track subsequent months to see whether those patterns persist or change as enforcement tactics evolve.