As tensions escalate across the nation over ICE deportation raids, protests and the deployment of the National Guard in California and now Texas, UCLA experts are on hand to provide political, legal and economic insights.
On the economic front, UCLA urban planning and sociology professor Chris Tilly explains how mass deportations of undocumented immigrants not only negatively impact immigrant families, but can ultimately depress the local, state and national economy.
"While many believe that immigrants take jobs from native-born workers, in reality the opposite is true: Immigrants make possible added growth of sectors that provide jobs for native-born and immigrant workers alike, and contribute to innovations that lead to new businesses and products. Deporting immigrants reverses these processes, to the detriment of the economy and the workforce."
"If large-scale deportations in California continue, we can expect to see slumps in construction, agriculture, manufacturing, and restaurants and other services to start with, but with ripple effects that will depress the entire California economy and reduce wages for native-born workers — and over time will also spill these effects over to the national economy."
Tilly studies labor markets, inequality, urban development and public policies directed toward better jobs.
He is particularly interested in understanding how combinations of institutions and markets generate unequal labor outcomes, and in how public policy and collective action can successfully be directed toward improving and equalizing such outcomes.
