President Donald Trump‘s mass deportation marketing campaign has induced the prices of groceries, properties and healthcare to rise and native economies to contract, in accordance with a new report from the pro-immigration advocacy group America’s Voice.
The group deems these added prices the “ICE Tax” — a reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and on Wednesday launched knowledge, first shared with CNBC, placing greenback figures on the methods they are saying Trump’s insurance policies are hurting the economic system.
“Forcibly deporting a whole bunch of hundreds of important employees means further {dollars} on the grocery checkout, the house that prices six figures extra to construct, the nook retailer that goes quiet after a raid, the job that disappears when a coworker by no means comes again to work,” Vanessa Cardenas, govt director of America’s Voice, stated in a press release.
“As a substitute of working to convey prices down and make America extra reasonably priced, they’ve chosen a deportation machine that terrorizes our communities, hurts our companies, and sticks each household with the invoice,” Cardenas continued.
The report requires Congress and the White Home to finish the “ICE Tax,” a messaging marketing campaign launched three months earlier than the 2026 midterm election, by which the price of dwelling and Trump’s immigration insurance policies are each key points.
In CNBC’s newest version of the All-America Financial Survey, which polled 1,000 voters in early July, 60% disapproved of Trump’s dealing with of the economic system. Immigration and border safety ranked because the third-most vital challenge dealing with the nation proper now, in accordance with respondents.
Trump in his second time period has set an aggressive purpose of deporting 1 million people yearly. ICE final month took greater than 46,000 people into custody for alleged immigration violations, a month-to-month report excessive underneath Trump, CBS Information reported.
ICE has repeatedly come underneath hearth this 12 months for its aggressive techniques and after a collection of high-profile killings by the hands of officers that prompted calls from Democrats and activists for reform. However in its newest report, America’s Voice makes an financial case for change throughout the company.
Lauren Bis, a White Home spokesperson, questioned the report’s findings and pointed the finger at President Joe Biden.
“Because of the Biden administration releasing hundreds of thousands of illegals into our nation, hire elevated, automobile insurance coverage premiums skyrocketed, the standard of our well being care and schooling declined, and wages dropped for American employees,” Bis stated by electronic mail. “President Trump is ending the affordability disaster induced partially by the Biden administration’s open border insurance policies by placing Americans first.”
The Division of Homeland Safety, which incorporates ICE, referred CNBC to a December 2025 put up on X that claims: “Need reasonably priced housing? Assist report unlawful aliens in your space.”
America’s Voice analyzed 12 months of federal worth knowledge resulted in June and located prices are rising quickest for meals whose manufacturing depends closely on immigrant labor. The worth of lettuce is up 32.1%; canned fruit has risen 7.9%; and contemporary citrus and apples have spiked 6.3% and seven.1%, respectively. That every one got here as core inflation, which excludes meals and power, rose 2.6% in the identical interval.
The report notes there are different elements in addition to deportations contributing to increased costs, together with climate and gas prices.
“No single determine proves the case by itself. However class after class, the services that rely most on immigrant labor are those pulling away from the remainder of the economic system. That is a value with a trigger, not a coincidence,” the report says.
In different sectors, too, the report does not show causality however identifies rising prices the place immigrant labor is essential.
Development employment fell 1.3% within the 5 states most reliant on immigrant labor from the beginning of the second Trump administration by means of June, whereas it grew 3.3% all through the remainder of the nation, the report discovered. Within the Northeast, whose development workforce is comprised of 23% immigrant laborers, new permits for single-family properties fell 23.5% from March 2025 to June 2026, whereas new residence costs in the identical area had been up 15.4% between the primary quarter of 2025 and the primary quarter of 2026, in accordance with the group’s evaluation.
Dwelling healthcare, a sector by which 40% or employees are immigrants, has seen a ten.7% price enhance over the previous 12 months, the report discovered. And native economies are struggling.
America’s Voice cites a College of Pennsylvania Wharton College of Enterprise examine, printed in Could, which discovered that after ICE enforcement hits a metro space, spending lags 6.2% beneath regular ranges and foot visitors hovers 2.7% beneath regular on the common enterprise. That lack of enterprise interprets to eight.1 billion fewer buyer visits and as much as $14 billion in foregone spending in a single 12 months, the Wharton report discovered.
“That’s the ICE tax. It isn’t a line merchandise anybody votes on or a fee anybody units. It’s the diffuse, compounding price that lands on households when the federal government pours its assets into deporting employees as an alternative of into bringing prices down: pricier groceries, a home that prices extra to construct, costlier look after getting older mother and father, a shuttered bakery on the nook, a job web site gone quiet,” the America’s Voice report says.
