Deporting workers connected with the food industry will inevitably result in shortages and soaring food prices, particularly when combined with tariffs on products from Mexico. The public, which thinks it just voted for lower prices, will not be pleased. Could Trump avoid this problem simply by telling Stephen Miller very quietly to leave those workers alone and focus on urban areas?
I will be surprised if that doesn’t happen; after all, many of the capitalists in the food industry who will be crying for relief are his supporters. Don’t think that a more cynical approach to deportation will completely solve the problem, however. The fear of being imprisoned in a vast and squalid deportation camp will be enough to drive millions of migrants, including essential workers in agriculture and the meat processing industry, out of the country. Labor and food shortages will ensue; they just won’t be quite as dire as they might be with a more transparent and even-handed scheme.