> love the argument that deporting illegals is meaningless

Red herring. Nobody said this.

My point is Trump isn’t deporting that many people. His numbers are not economically meaningful compared to tariffs. To the extent there are labour pools that would benefit from deportation, they’re geographically concentrated along the border.

If Trump wanted to remove illegals from the American labour pool, he’d target employers. He can’t [1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/06/16/nx-s1-5430846/farming-industr...

The administration seems to be deliberately making the deportations as cruel and scary as possible (CECOT, Alligator Alcatraz, etc) as a means of deterring future illegal immigration and encouraging self deportation. I haven’t looked into the numbers to see how well that’s working or not, but focusing on deportations alone is missing two thirds of the picture.

I’m not sure if this is accurate, but for example: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/31/migrant-crossings-darien...

I expect the numbers will go the way they want. Perhaps because of the cruelty. Perhaps because tariff games make the economy uncertain.

Having a recession is a proven way to reduce illegal immigration, and we're at least starting to see recessionary signals.

If you come here we'll torture you, how very American.

It sounds like you support deporting illegals, as long as we also eliminate tariffs (?)

> sounds like you support deporting illegals, as long as we also eliminate tariffs

I’m saying irrespective of what you and I believe, the current administration isn’t meaningfully deporting anyone.

(To the extent I have policy views on this, it’s for coherence. You can’t do disruptive deportations while ignoring criminals all while launching on again off again tariffs which preclude both long-term domestic investment and trade-barrier reductions.)

They are however meaningfully creating fear. The public cruelty and lawlessness will reduce immigration.