Trump Administration’s ICE “Shock And Awe” Immigration Surge Cost 668,000 Jobs, Brookings Finds

A Brookings Institution report says the Trump administration’s immigration surge into US cities last year resulted in 668,000 job losses, creating a “chilling effect” that pervaded local economies and affected American-born workers.

“Executive summary The current administration’s 2025 interior immigration enforcement campaign has been promoted, in large part, as a labor market policy: remove unauthorized workers and create jobs for Americans”

Brookings

The report says the Immigration and Customs Enforcement campaign adopted “shock and awe” tactics that were broader and far more visible than previous enforcement efforts, including one started under former President George W. Bush in 2008 and continued under former President Barack Obama.

Brookings

In the 86 cities that saw the sharpest rise in ICE arrests, the report found roughly 13 lost jobs associated with each excess arrest, and it estimated that between 51,000 and 297,000 of the 668,000 jobs lost would have been held by American-born workers.

The study compared employment outcomes between cities that experienced an enforcement surge in the first half of 2025 and others that did not, using arrest data from the Deportation Data Project and employment estimates from Lightcast and federal payroll records.

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on the report, according to Business Standard.

Brookings says the 2025 interior enforcement campaign represented a sharp break from prior enforcement policy in scale and tactics, and it describes the approach as “shock and awe” built around highly visible raids, worksite arrests, and viral videos of detentions.

The report says employment trajectories in surge and non-surge cities were closely aligned before enforcement began and diverged precisely when ICE arrests intensified, with the knock-on effects extending far beyond those directly targeted.

South China Morning Post

Brookings reports that in the 86 surge cities, ICE made around 52,000 excess arrests, but it argues arrests were only a proxy for broader disruption, including visible raids and heightened ICE presence.

It adds that each excess arrest is associated with 13 jobs lost overall, and it says job loss deepened over time, with the gap widening to 1.48% in 51 cities where outcomes could be observed at least six months after the surge began.

The report’s authors write that “Enforcement at this scale and speed — visible, shocking, designed to produce fear beyond the directly targeted population — destroys jobs, disrupts businesses that Americans own and run, and depresses the local economies in which Americans live and work,” as quoted by Business Standard.

Brookings says the enforcement surge cost jobs by working through labor withdrawal, business disruption, and weaker local demand, and it describes American workers being harmed as firms faced sudden labor shortages and scaled back operations, delayed projects, and cut headcount.

“Trump’s ICE blitz cost 668,000 jobs, creating ‘chilling effect’ on US firms The crackdown also caused labour shortage and forced companies to reduce operations for everyone, including US-born workers, a report said The Trump administration’s immigration surge into US cities last year resulted in 668,000 job losses, creating a “chilling effect” that pervaded local economies, hurt businesses and affected American-born workers, according to a report from the Brookings Institution”

South China Morning Post

The report says declining foot traffic and consumer spending hurt businesses whose customers stayed home, and it notes that sectors with immigrant workers heavily represented, such as construction and accommodation and food services, sustained the deepest direct job losses.

It also says industries with very few immigrant workers, such as arts and entertainment, contracted sharply in surge cities, and it frames that pattern as consistent with fear-driven demand suppression when enforcement actions dominate the news.

Business Standard reports that the study estimated between 51,000 and 297,000 of the 668,000 jobs lost would have been held by American-born workers, and it says consumer spending fell in immigrant-heavy communities.

The report cites a study that suggested spending in Los Angeles neighborhoods with high levels of foreign-born residents slipped as much as 25% in the two months following the announcement of a local ICE campaign, and it warns that a wide-scale “shock and awe” approach is “costly and counterproductive.”