Commentary: Mass deportation is diverting money that could be used for healthcare, other needs

We work quickly on our feet every day as parents to keep our children protected and healthy. So I’ll never forget the day I stood speechless in my kitchen, holding the letter declaring my daughter with Type 1 diabetes no longer had health insurance. My heart sank. I had no idea how we would pay for the daily medications she needed to survive. 

Too many families like mine carry the burden of financial hardship. While these challenges are hard to overcome, the economic policies we’ve seen during the second term of Donald Trump’s presidency don’t make it any easier. These policies have made life unaffordable — from feeding our families and putting gas in the tank to paying for doctor’s visits and medicine. Instead of helping lower costs, Trump is helping billionaires make their next billion, while forcing taxpayers to fund a mass deportation plan that sent shockwaves through our state and worsened the fear that so many were already experiencing. 

Policies that cut healthcare funding while raising gas and grocery prices put more Minnesotans in danger of financial ruin. Watching federal leaders prioritize unwanted mass deportations sickens me, especially because I know firsthand the importance of affordable health insurance. 

My daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in the early 2000s. When my daughter got her diagnosis, our family did not have health insurance. It was a horrific trifecta: My husband at the time made too much for state healthcare, his employer did not provide a group plan and we could not afford to buy private insurance. For the first year, we were lucky to enroll in a state program that helped pay for prescriptions for children with chronic diseases. 

About a year later, I found myself in the kitchen reading that letter: The state program had shut down, and they had no resources or recommendations on what to do next. Despite living in Rochester, which is home to some of the world’s best doctors, I worried about how we would now access her lifesaving medications without insurance. 

People with diabetes know that medical treatment is not optional. This was before Minnesota instituted price caps on insulin. We had no choice but to empty our savings as we fought to cover the exorbitant costs of insulin, supplies and doctor’s visits. The accumulating cost of medical bills and prescriptions meant that other bills came second. Years later, I found a new job that provided insurance for our family, but it was too late to recover. We lost our house and went bankrupt. 

Given the many needs of our people and after what I’ve gone through, I was infuriated to discover that across Minnesota, over $4.4 billion of our taxes, or $2,050 per taxpayer, is going to fund mass deportations that have devastated our communities, according to a new calculator by the Economic Policy Institute. The tool determines how much each state is contributing to the over $268 billion we’re spending to separate families and take people from their productive, tax-paying jobs. 

I can’t stomach that parents are working extra shifts while their taxes go directly from their paychecks to fuel these operations. Mass deportations have an incalculable human toll, and we stand to lose $4.4 billion in taxpayer money that could be spent saving lives by keeping rural hospitals open, families fed and insured, and more. 

To give you some idea of the cost of mass deportation policies, the same money could fund 11,600 Minnesota nurses, medical care to 82,000 Minnesota veterans and Medicaid for 130,000 Minnesotans. 

These numbers are particularly alarming after Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” slashed the budget for lifesaving programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and SNAP to provide massive tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations. 

To the elected officials who have supported this, let our message ring clear: Our taxes should not foot the bill for mass deportation.

We have a responsibility to speak up when leaders have betrayed our trust. My daughter and my family deserved better, and now, many others are in similar shoes while our taxes fund ICE. I encourage everyone to speak to their friends and family about how Trump will always be in the business of helping the ultra-wealthy, while making us pay for it: with our homes, our health and our lives.