The total number of immigrants calling Kent County home is 57,400. Of those, 17,000 or 23.5% are undocumented. If they were to be deported?
“What would happen to the economy of Kent County? It would collapse.”
Guillermo Cesneros is president of the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
“Because we won’t have enough workers to be in manufacturing, to be in agriculture, to be in hospitality.”
One of the Economic Impact Report of New Americans in Kent County, released by theAmerican Immigration Council key findings is this:
“While making up 8.9 percent of the county’s overall population in 2019, immigrants represented 53.1 percent of agriculture workers, 15.3 percent of construction workers, and 14.8 percent of transportation and warehouse workers.”
Cesneros questions policies aiming to remove undocumented immigrants from the system.
“As a state, we can provide a document, a driver’s license, that could help them with mobility. And that would bring other pieces to the economy. They would pay car insurance. They will pay taxes to the state for the plates and different pieces.”
To that end, the report says that in 2021, Kent County immigrants contributed $192.3 million to Social Security and $47.8 million to Medicare.