Why changes in immigration policy could cause long-term economic harm to U.S. citizens – Center for Retirement Research
Immigration detentions and deportations leave their U.S. children in limbo
We should be careful before arresting, detaining, and deporting immigrant parents who are U.S. citizens. Separating parents from their children is an extreme act. One of the most basic things to consider is: Is this parent in the United States without authorization?
Take Gustavo Adolfo Aguilera Aguero, for example, a man with no criminal record. Aguilera Aguero and his wife entered the country legally in 2023 using the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's CBP One app. After obtaining a work permit, Aguilera Aguero was employed in the roofing industry, during which time his wife gave birth to a child named Jacob. Citizens under 14 years oldth The amendment states that Jacobs was separated from his father in March 2025 when Aguilera Aguero was falsely arrested, possibly because of his tattoos. Despite this mistake, Aguilera Aguero was deported to a notoriously dangerous Salvadoran prison before being released back to her native Venezuela. I had no idea the damage this forced separation was doing to a child’s mental health. But I do know a thing or two about financial losses. And it could be big.
You see, instability caused by parental arrest and separation falls under the umbrella of “adverse childhood experiences,” or ACEs. An extensive literature documents how ACEs limit an individual's ability to function effectively in society. Before people start their careers, ACEs reduce the likelihood of earning a college degree, one of the best predictors of career earnings. When older, people with ACEs experience higher absenteeism and other problems at work and have difficulty keeping jobs. Employment instability is also reflected in families – people with ACEs have lower marriage rates and higher divorce rates. While these sound like personal problems, they manifest themselves in ways that cost society: higher rates of welfare dependency and lower gross domestic product.
But despite extensive research on the effects of ACEs, less is known about their cumulative impact on people's lives. In particular, as a retired researcher, a colleague and I wondered in a recent working paper how various ACEs affect workers' wealth accumulation over their careers. As children with ACEs approach their 60th birthday, how compromised are their retirement readiness?
The analysis used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) to follow more than 5,000 people from their teenage years in 1979 through their late 50s or early 60s. In the NLSY79, parental separation may result from divorce, death, or other circumstances (e.g., living with grandparents, foster care, etc.). While our study may not accurately reflect what happened to Jacob, and we don't know how the story would have played out, it can at least give us a sense of how the financial well-being of people with ACEs differs from those without ACEs.
To this end, Figure 1 shows how the median net worth differs between the ages of 54 and 61 for people with and without ACEs. Because families who experienced ACEs differed from those who did not, the analyzes controlled for factors such as gender, race, parental education, and parental income. The graph shows that even taking these factors into account, all ACEs are associated with significantly lower net worth. The net worth of those who experienced separation from their parents was more than $28,000, or 23%, lower than those without ACEs.
Of note, interpreting cause and effect for this result is difficult—many factors may be different for families with ACEs and, despite our efforts, we simply have no control over these factors. We do find, however, that much of the wealth gap appears to be associated with these children ending up with less education, earning less and working less throughout their lives, and being divorced longer. The extensive literature I mentioned above accurately documents these effects of parental separation.
This problem won't go away. With the Supreme Court allowing the current government to revoke the legal status of more than 600,000 Venezuelans, many who came here legally — like Aguilera Aguero — may soon be without the right to stay. Is deporting parents who came here legally but lost their protected status due to policy changes worth the long-term damage to our citizens? Our government seems content to deport well-intentioned parents, no matter the collateral damage to their American children.
