Tracking Immigration Enforcement Activity and Its Effects in Real-Time

• In Event: Immigration Enforcement and Its Ripple Effects: Labor Markets, Mobility, and Health

Abstract

The newly inaugurated Trump administration has made it clear that heightened immigration enforcement is a top priority. Just in the first month, the administration signed many executive orders related to immigration, and the Laken Riley Act was enacted, which will greatly increase the number of immigrants detained and possibly deported from the U.S. Federal employees are also being told to divert their attention from existing work to focus solely on immigration enforcement activities. Finally, ICE has conducted several very public raids across the country. The shifts in enforcement priorities raise pressing questions about the implementation of immigration policies and their broader economic and social consequences, including how they impact the integration of immigrants into U.S. society across generations.

The intensification of immigration enforcement presents a critical research opportunity to assess how policy shifts translate into real-world outcomes. Historically, immigration enforcement has been challenging to measure due to data limitations and the opaque nature of enforcement practices. However, the increasing availability of administrative and real-time data sources allows for a more precise and timely analysis of enforcement trends and their consequences. By integrating multiple real-time data sources, this project will provide a systematic assessment of how enforcement actions are evolving, the extent to which they align with stated policy goals, and the impact of these actions on immigrants and the economy more broadly. The ability to track these trends in real-time is particularly important given the rapid pace of policy implementation.

This research aims to address two key questions: (1) How is heightened immigration enforcement unfolding under the Trump 2.0 administration, and what are the characteristics of the immigrants deported and detained by these policies? (2) What are the broader consequences of intensified immigration enforcement for immigrants and the overall economy? (I define immigrants as foreign-born individuals and will explore heterogeneous effects within the foreign-born population based on other characteristics such as citizenship status.)

Author

• Chloe N East, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author