President Donald Trump’s mobilization of California National Guard troops to protect immigration officers from protesters highlights his crackdown on undocumented workers and the economic impact of a sudden drop in labor supply.
Protests in Los Angeles began on Friday, when armed federal agents clad in camouflage uniforms, tactical vests, and helmets arrived in armored vehicles to carry out a raid on a clothing wholesaler. It was the latest in a series of similar high-profile operations at businesses around the country.
Also on Friday, the Labor Department issued its monthly jobs report, which showed the U.S. workforce shrank in May as the number of foreign-born workers saw the biggest back-to-back declines since 2020. That comes after a surge in immigration during the Biden administration helped boost economic activity.
According to a Deutsche Bank analysis of data from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the number of encounters at the Southwest border has plunged to 12,000 people per month since Trump’s inauguration from an average of 200,000 during the year-and-a-half period between January 2022 and June 2024.
“While everyone is focused on the impact of tariffs, the real story for the US economy is the collapse in immigration: down more than 90% compared to the run rate of previous years, equivalent to a slowing in labour force growth of more than 2 million people,” George Saravelos, head of FX research at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a note on Friday. “This represents a far more sustained negative supply shock for the economy than tariffs.”
While Trump has pointed to weaker payroll growth as reasons for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, his immigration crackdown gives the central bank, which is already wary of the inflationary effect of his tariffs, another reason to wait and see.
That’s because a workforce that is growing more slowly doesn’t need as much hiring to absorb the additional labor supply. In fact, even as average payroll gains have cooled to 124,000 a month this year from 250,000 in 2024, the jobless rate has hovered around 4.2% since last summer.
Wall Street sees a lower breakeven rate for job growth, or the amount of hiring need to keep the unemployment rate steady. By the end of this year, that pace should fall to 90,000 per month from 170,000 now and 210,000 last year, according to Morgan Stanley, which cited deportations and slower immigration.
Deutsche Bank warned the collapse of immigration will have broader implications in financial markets, including on the dollar, which has already been battered by Trump’s aggressive tariff campaign.
“Last year we were writing that the US was benefitting from a goldilocks mix of high employment growth and low wages precisely because of high immigration numbers,” Saravelos said. “If recent immigration trends continue, it must follow that over the course of the year the reverse will happen. As the 2022 energy shock showed, a negative supply shock is not good news for a currency.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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