The Chilling Cost of ICE

ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is the U.S. governmental department in charge of finding, arresting and deporting illegal and undocumented immigrants. If you keep up with the news, then you’ll know that recently there was an ICE crackdown in the Pacific Northwest, targeting and arresting undocumented immigrants, that resulted in the arrest of 84 people and will presumably lead to a majority, if not all of them, being deported.

What we at The Advocate want to talk about isn’t the morality of this issue. This editorial is not to debate if this enforcement is right or wrong; we’re leaving that up to our writers, who have voiced their own opinions in other articles this issue. What we are going to talk about is what this, and any follow-up crackdowns like it, are going to mean for everyone – each of us – regardless of where we fall on this controversial topic.

First, let’s talk about the thing that is always on people’s mind, money. According to a recent Seattle Times news article, for President Trump’s new ICE policies to fully come into effect, and all of those who are here illegally to be arrested and deported, would cost roughly $5 billion in new ICE employees, jails, detention centers and staff.

This doesn’t include the other costs for travel to fly/drive these people back to their countries of origin, nor the potential estimated $12 billion, at least, to build Trump’s proposed new border wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico boundary.

To give an idea of the scope of cost we are talking about, the city of Gary, Indiana, recently sought $80 million to build a detention center that would hold roughly 800 people. In Oregon right now, there are roughly 120,000 undocumented immigrants, so if it costs $80 million to allow for detention for 800, how much are we as individuals going to have to pay in taxes to house, feed, detain and ship 120,000 individuals?

Another thing to think about is those jobs some people are always complaining that the immigrants have taken.

A large amount of those jobs involve migrant farm work, picking fruits and veggies when harvest season comes around. It’s a job sector that just about any farmer will tell you is one that, even with the usual amount of migrant workers available, isn’t as well-staffed as most farmers and other producers would like.

If these crackdowns continue, and Oregon’s $5.4 billion annual agricultural industry loses the majority of its workforce, what would that mean to the average person? Well, with very few workers, very little produce is picked and processed for sale, and such farmers might lose their livelihood. On top of that, if there is very little food picked, either Oregon shoppers will have to pay a premium to import their produce from other states or we just won’t have access to it. Either way, the demand will far outweigh the supply and food prices will skyrocket. This doesn’t just cover produce at the grocery store, either. Any food or drink that comes from the Northwest, whether it’s Franz Bakery bread made from local grain, to Burgerville, a locally sourced restaurant chain, or local microbreweries that use Oregon hops, will be hit with higher costs, meaning a higher cost to the consumer. This means more expensive bread, burgers and beer for you, and a declining economy for Oregon as a state.

Thirdly, this is all reminiscent of the weary and misguided “War on Drugs.” This could be another such war with no clearly defined endgame, and could also easily lead to a gross amount of government overspending, all against a phantom enemy. The feds have not had a great track record in these kinds of campaigns with ill-defined goals, and we need to hold our government to a standard that won’t lead us to overzealous enforcement and police influence.

Mt. Hood, which has declared itself a sanctuary campus, is committed to keeping its students safe with all it can, according to a follow-up recent letter from President Debbie Derr to college staff and community this week. She noted how former MHCC student Francisco Dominguez was arrested without a warrant and detained by ICE.

We would just to underscore, regardless of whether you’re in favor of these crackdowns, if these people are forced to leave it will have a very real impact on you as a consumer, and as an individual. We may end up paying a very large price in order to send them to other places, so remember what you’re paying for.

These people are human beings who, regardless of how they got to this country, are currently making an impact on everyone’s lives and whose future should not be decided quickly, haphazardly or without serious forethought to the consequences to everyone.