CHICAGO — Mass deportations carried out during the second Trump administration did not create more job opportunities for U.S.-born workers and harmed the employment prospects of working-class men in industries that rely heavily on undocumented labor, according to a working paper titled "Labor Market Impacts of ICE Activity in Trump 2.0" by economists Chloe East and Elizabeth Cox. The paper combines Immigration and Customs Enforcement enforcement data with economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The study found that the immigration enforcement crackdown hurt employment prospects of U.S.-born working-class men in sectors such as construction, where undocumented workers make up a substantial share of the workforce. "The mass deportations in Trump 2.0 are not helping the labor market overall and not creating more job opportunities for U.S.-born workers," East said.

After President Trump took office in January 2025, arrests by ICE more than quadrupled, according to analysis by the Deportation Data Project. In 2025 and early 2026, traditional ICE arrests involving transfers of custody from jails or prisons to immigration detention facilities doubled, while community or street arrests increased by more than elevenfold. Arrests of noncitizens without a criminal conviction rose eightfold during the same period.

Federal authorities began enforcing immigration laws much deeper in the interior of the country rather than primarily near the border, the Deportation Data Project found. Street arrests took place in neighborhoods, worksites, immigration courts, and check-in appointments at ICE offices.

"ICE activity in the second Trump administration is the most indiscriminate it's been in the modern era," East said. "To immigrants living in our country, it has felt like leaving your house for any reason could cause an interaction with ICE, and could cause you to get arrested and potentially deported," she said.

The Deportation Data Project, a nonprofit founded by a political scientist and two lawyers, obtained the immigration enforcement data through the Freedom of Information Act.