Personal environments, morals, and levels of involvement in general politics were the differentiating factors behind each voter’s concerns for the 2024 presidential election.
According to an analysis of 2024 exit polls conducted by ABC News, “around a third of voters ranked each of ‘the state of democracy’ and ‘the economy’ as their most important issue” in the election. When broken down into groups advocating for each candidate, of all people who ranked democracy as their main concern, 80% voted for Kamala Harris and 18% voted for Donald Trump. Of all the people who ranked the economy as their number one concern, 80% voted for Trump and 19% voted for Harris.
It’s not a shock that most people who prioritize the economy voted for Trump. When we look at what both candidates based their campaign on, Harris prioritized the potential for true equity while Trump made “plans” to grow the economy through baseless claims, and the American people believed him — that’s how desperate our working class is to financially succeed. I’d argue that Harris was fighting for the working class in a way that did not appeal to “systemically powerful” demographics which led to her loss, but I digress.
Of course we all know that Trump is now back in office, and has already signed 55 executive orders since the start of his term on Jan. 20, 2025. So let’s take a deep dive into one of his most popular executive orders, and the economic consequences that may follow.
what is the order?
Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has signed the executive action known as “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” This order is a strict crack down on immigration laws that also encourages the Department of Homeland Security and other significant agencies to uphold this new legislation.
The National Immigration Forum says that through this action, Trump is planning on “utilizing military forces in support of mass deportation operations.” Because of this, the military and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, are encouraged to carry out “enforcement activities” for these mass deportations in areas such as religious sites, schools, workplaces, and many more “previously protected” spaces.
It is estimated that this new order would aim to deport 500,000 undocumented immigrants per year. And according to The American Immigration Council, around 225,000 of those immigrants would be farmworkers — gone in just one deportation.
Immigration’s intersection with agricultural inflation
Now, we’ll do some math. There were about 1.17 million farmworkers in the U.S. in 2023. It was reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that in the years 2020-2022, 19% of farmworkers were authorized to work through a green card, and 42% were not authorized to work at all. Almost half of our agricultural industry is being carried by undocumented immigrants, while over half is being carried by immigrants regardless of legal status.
I’ll break it down a little more. 42% of 1.17 million people is about 500,000; and if 225,000 farmworkers would be deported under one of Trump’s mass deportations, that means it would only take two mass deportations for nearly half of our agricultural industry to be wiped out of the U.S..
Let’s look at how this all intertwines with inflation. Americans live in a supply-demand economy. This means that when we have a larger amount of a good or product, the price decreases because the demand isn’t as high — this can be related to the accessibility of products. The inverse shows that if we have a low supply of a product or good, the price will increase because it’s not as accessible.
If we have less workers in farm labor and livestock care, there will be less food for the public. If the supply of food decreases, the price will increase. It’s a lot more simple than people are making this issue out to be.
Rethinking the impacts
If you’re reading this, and you voted for Trump, I’m going to make a safe assumption and say that it was in favor of “restoring” the economy and his immigration policies. But hear me out, if we continue to do our own research on these kinds of topics and engage in critical thinking, we’ll start to see how many of Trump’s policies are fundamentally mutually exclusive — and that’s just the start.