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A new report found Connecticut will face financial impacts from mass deportations.

The Connecticut Voices for Children and Immigrant Research Initiative report noted the state will see lost tax revenue and workforce shortages. In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid more than $406 million in taxes.

Emily Byrne, executive director of Connecticut Voices for Children said undocumented immigrants are a major piece of the state’s workforce.

“A loss of a large number of workers in Connecticut would mean an increased cost of living for Connecticut residents,” Byrne pointed out. “Because it would cost more to dine in restaurants, child care would be increased, home health aides, the cost would go up, construction, and other things.”

The report showed 25% of construction workers in the state are immigrants with 13% of total construction workers being undocumented immigrants. The report suggested the best way forward is expanding pathways to legal status, which could raise Connecticut tax revenue by $90 million annually.

Other industries potentially facing labor shortages are farming and agriculture. While there are more than 5,000 farms in Connecticut, most crop workers in the state and nationwide are in the country on an H-2A visa or are undocumented.

David Dyssegaard Kallick, director of the Immigrant Research Initiative, said Connecticut does not have enough people to fill jobs lost by mass deportations.

“There’ll be some jobs that open up in areas like the back of the house of a restaurant, in farmwork, or in day care,” Kallick outlined. “There are some people who would benefit from being able to go into that kind of work but not nearly enough to make up for the numbers we’d be losing.”

Workforce reductions would force businesses to shrink. The report found labor in the state is already constrained since Connecticut has an unemployment rate of 3.4%. Some employers statewide are struggling to find employees. Kallick and the report note eliminating large numbers of workers from the labor force won’t help.