For many, these news stories are frightening.
Kilmar Abrega Garcia, a Salvadorian native who was residing in Maryland, was wrongfully deported to CECOT prison, one of the harshest prisons in the world, with no contact with the outside world, due to alleged MS-13 ties claimed by the Trump administration, according to a September 5 ABC News story. Garcia had no prior criminal record, no relationship to the gang, and was a documented resident of the United States.
In Louisiana, a mother and her U.S citizen children, one with Stage 4 kidney cancer, were deported back to Honduras without due process, according to stories by the BBC and ABC News. The mother was never given the option to advocate for her U.S.-born children to continue to reside in the U.S. Since they’ve been removed, her children have received no medical care while being deported.
As of August 2025, the Trump administration has deported more than 300,000 people, women, children, and families, according to CNN as of Aug 21, 2025.
One would like to think that the government’s ability to profile someone simply based on race or the assumption that someone is “foreign” was a thing of the past and a violation of the 4th Amendment, which guarantees protection from unreasonable searches and seizures without warrant or probable cause.
But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of lifting the ban on using racial profiling tactics in LA ICE raids and sweeps, meaning they are allowed to stop and interrogate people based on where they work, what language they speak, and how they look.
The raids that are being conducted are unjust and unlawful. Mass deportation separates hundreds of thousands of U.S citizen children from their families.
With all of the facts that are presented, many American citizens still believe misinformation that is spread by false news networks and rage-baiting posts on social media.
The removal of the immigrant population in the United States, legal or not, would cause devastating economic consequences. Proponents of mass deportation often overlook the positive contribution that the immigrant workforce has on the economy. They are crucial to many industries, including agriculture, construction, landscaping, manufacturing, and healthcare, often doing difficult jobs, labor-intensive, and undesirable to many citizens of this country. And let’s not ignore the fact that they also pay taxes.
As of 2022, 10.9 million undocumented migrants paid $96.7 billion in state, federal, and local taxes, according to The Institute of Taxation. Documented immigrant households contribute $579 billion to our economy, according to the American Immigration Council. So, the idea that immigrants come to the United States to live off the system and taxpayers’ money is a lie. Immigrants, undocumented or not, contribute exponentially to our economy.
Additionally, it has been proven that the crime rates of undocumented immigrants tend to be lower because they are less willing and/or likely to commit a crime than U.S.-born citizens, according to the American Immigration Council as of October 14, 2024.
The act of mass deportation isn’t only affecting immigrants but is also affecting American taxpayers. Trump’s deportation plan costs $88 billion of taxpayers’ income. Not only is it wrong, it just isn’t ethical.
When high school students and teachers are asked about ICE raids and immigration, many agree that this is immoral. People who think that government officials would care just as much, if not more, than pedestrians are not connected to who is truly behind our becoming an authoritarian country.
“You cannot judge someone’s character based on what they look like, and using that as a metric to arrest people for apparently being here illegally has no backing behind it,” says Vincent Bell, a senior at Ojai Valley School.
College counselor and history teacher Fred Alvarez shared his opinion that people need to wake up and realize that immigrants are contributing more to our society than they are taking away from it.
“We are lying to ourselves if we think that there isn’t an immigrant workforce that not only is necessary for a productive American society, but is good for a productive American society,” Mr. Alvarez said.
In the world we live in today, we must all be careful, regardless of our race, religious beliefs, or country of origin, especially in a society where citizens are often focused more on small clips of information designed only to support their beliefs and biases instead of challenging them. This is the real problem that will hold back the growth and prosperity of this nation, not immigrants.
People should always be questioning a life in which people who have less importance are becoming the most responsible for the problems of our leaders.
I never imagined that, in 2025, we’d face the reality of ICE agents patrolling our streets and terrorizing both legal and undocumented people in the name of freedom. This is not us being our best selves, and not the principles that make this country great.