Yes, the economic consequences (long-term to research and researcher-training and the industries that rely on them on the one end, and shorter term to e.g. farm and construction labor on the other) are definitely a highlight of democratic rhetoric against Trump's immigration enforcement regime & priorities, as far as "why we shouldn't do this", second perhaps only to matters of due process now that those have been forced to the fore (which is more of a, "regardless of what we're trying to do, this is an illegal way to go about it").
I suppose the third pillar of the push-back, maybe also more-prominent than the economic argument now that vague concerns have become concrete, is on humanitarian grounds, resisting specifically deporting people who're likely to come to harm if they are sent back, and shipping people to foreign prisons controlled by states with poor human rights records—of course this is heavily tied up with the whole due-process thing, since that's key to settling whether these sorts of claims have merit, if one cares whether they have merit.
It is true that Democrats often claim that a big part of why Republicans are so eager to crack down on illegal immigrants even at the expense of waves hand at paragraphs above is due to various -isms and -phobias, but you're right that I don't see a lot of "the reason we shouldn't do this is because it's racist/xenophobic", but rather "we shouldn't do this because [list of practical and humanitarian reasons]" (perhaps followed up by, "the reason the Republicans want to do this is racism and xenophobia", which I think is reductive and not very useful but is at least somewhat more-accurate than the opposing framing of motivation as, "democrats actively want, specifically, violent foreign criminals in our cities")
Yes, the economic consequences (long-term to research and researcher-training and the industries that rely on them on the one end, and shorter term to e.g. farm and construction labor on the other) are definitely a highlight of democratic rhetoric against Trump's immigration enforcement regime & priorities, as far as "why we shouldn't do this", second perhaps only to matters of due process now that those have been forced to the fore (which is more of a, "regardless of what we're trying to do, this is an illegal way to go about it").
I suppose the third pillar of the push-back, maybe also more-prominent than the economic argument now that vague concerns have become concrete, is on humanitarian grounds, resisting specifically deporting people who're likely to come to harm if they are sent back, and shipping people to foreign prisons controlled by states with poor human rights records—of course this is heavily tied up with the whole due-process thing, since that's key to settling whether these sorts of claims have merit, if one cares whether they have merit.
It is true that Democrats often claim that a big part of why Republicans are so eager to crack down on illegal immigrants even at the expense of waves hand at paragraphs above is due to various -isms and -phobias, but you're right that I don't see a lot of "the reason we shouldn't do this is because it's racist/xenophobic", but rather "we shouldn't do this because [list of practical and humanitarian reasons]" (perhaps followed up by, "the reason the Republicans want to do this is racism and xenophobia", which I think is reductive and not very useful but is at least somewhat more-accurate than the opposing framing of motivation as, "democrats actively want, specifically, violent foreign criminals in our cities")