Liberals Exaggerated Cost of Deporting Illegal Immigrants Sevenfold – And Massively Underestimated Cost of Their Crimes
Democrats have constantly claimed that deporting illegal immigrants would be prohibitively expensive, costing taxpayers more than letting them stay and enjoy government benefits. And as is always the case, they’re dead wrong.
American Immigration Council (AIC) Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick recently told a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on mass deportation that removing illegal immigrants from the country would cost taxpayers in excess of $316 billion.
“You estimate, at least in one publication here, that the cost of massive deportation would be $316 billion?” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked.
“At a minimum,” Reichlin-Melnick responded.
However, the former Crime Prevention Research Center president, John R. Lott, Jr., estimated the cost of removing undocumented individuals from the country has been exaggerated up to sevenfold.
“When the AIC cost estimates are six to seven times larger than the per deportee costs that we have actually observed over the last decade, you would hope people would be skeptical.” – Lott wrote.
Besides the projected figures, President Trump insists that the cost of removing illegal immigrants has no price tag.
“It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not really, we have no choice,’ Trump told NBC News. “When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag.”
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, also reiterated that deporting illegal immigrants was a priority regardless of the cost.
According to the AIC, deporting 1 million illegal immigrants costs almost $88 billion per year in arrests ($7 billion), detention ($66 billion), legal processes ($12.6 billion), and transport ($2.1 billion), averaging about $88,000 per individual by the most conservative estimates. Over a decade, the cost balloons to about $967.9 billion.
However, Lott noted that the AIC figures exclude government subsidies on food and accommodation for illegal immigrants. Including this amount significantly reduces the cost of detention from the projected $66 billion.
Lott also noted that the AIC’s projected cost of detaining one million illegal immigrants accounts for more than three-quarters of the projected amount. He pointed out that the estimate assumes that all one million deportees must be detained simultaneously for one year.
However, the average detention time is usually less than two months, meaning that only 167,000 deportees should be housed at a particular moment.
Lott also noted that some estimates suggest a detainment period of less than one month, resulting in only 83,000 deportees being housed within a particular period. According to AIC, 41,500 detainment facilities already exist, thus reducing the number of new buildings to be constructed.
“The AIC assumes each facility holds 500 beds, so 83 new facilities will have to be built. With each facility costing $35.91 million, that comes to a cost of $3 billion, a fraction of the $66 billion.”
“The problem with the AIC numbers is even worse than that because they must rebuild 216 completely new facilities each and every year, but that isn’t necessary as these facilities will last for years.”
The researcher also noted that the daily cost of detaining a deportee was grossly exaggerated at $237 per individual and $482 for a family.
“In the United States in 2022, the daily cost for prisoners in federal medium security prisons is $122.50, and for high-security prisons is $164.87. Privately operated institutions for federal prisoners are only $93.50 a day per capita,” he noted.
Based on existing data, the cost of deporting an individual falls from the projected $88,000 to just between $13,706 and $15,499.
“From 2015 to 2022, per capita deportation costs in 2024 dollars averaged $12,124. They range from $9,767 under Obama, $11,637 for Trump, and $15,499 for Biden.”
“Even if we include the entire Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) budget, which involves many other customs activities, the per-deportee costs from 2002 to 2022 average $13,706 in 2024 dollars.”
“The year with the most deportations, 2004, saw 1.4 million deportees with a total ICE budget in 2024 dollars of $6.1 billion, or $4,354 per deportee,” Lott continued.
Similarly, the cost of detaining and deporting 662,566 illegal immigrants with a criminal record would cost $8 billion. However, the cost of victimization for crimes committed by noncitizens is about $166.5 billion.
“The costs of crime are roughly at least 21 times higher than deportation costs,” Lott added.
In 2017, the research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, Steven A. Camarota, estimated that the net cost of allowing each illegal immigrant to stay was $63,000.
“Sometimes people say look, we couldn’t deport everybody because it’s prohibitively expensive,” he said. “But if your only concern is fiscal cost, it’s pretty clear that letting them stay is a hell of a lot more expensive.”
Also need to figure the self deportation numbers in the calculations once the laws are strictly enforced and the free ride from the government becomes more difficult. Every person that goes to there home country on there own saves on both the “send them home” account and the “welfare” account. These savings, as well as any amount for each illegal that decides to not try to be an illegal are not mentioned in the article but will be a huge amount in the end.
That leftists suddenly give adamn about fiscal sanity is amusing, considering they couldn’t wait to throw bales of cash at illegals who snuck into our country. That they’re lying about the cost is to be expected. They wouldn’t be liberals if they weren’t constantly lying.
But let’s be honest; every gvt program costs seven times what anyone forecast.
Liberals DID NOT exaggerate! They LIED God Damn it! the dirtbag scum lied their asses off! Quit giving them a pass, it’s also a lie to soft pedal when the truth is so important. Populist Times, Please quit being guilty of what the criminal Liberals are doing!
The cost of deporting the first 11 million would be about $315 billion. Deporting the remaining 9 million would cost about the same, for a total of about $630 billion. Over the four years of Trump’s presidency this equates to about $157.5 billion per year.
Illegal aliens cost the government about $150 billion per year. So, if all of them were 6 on the first day, the $150 billion per year would be immediately recovered. Obviously, that can not happen.
In calculating the net fiscal balance of legal immigrants, illegal aliens, and / or U.S. born citizens,
four types of government benefits and services are relevant. These are:
• Direct benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and
workmen’s compensation.2
• Means-tested welfare benefits – Means-tested benefits are available only to poor and lower income persons. There are over 90 of these programs, which, at a cost of over $1.2 trillion per year, provide cash, food housing, medical, and services to roughly 80 million low income Americans. Major programs include: Medicaid, Food Stamps, the refundable earned income tax credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.
• Public education – At an average annual cost over $15,000 per pupil, these services are largely free or heavily subsidized for low income parents.
• Population-based services – police, fire, highways, parks, and similar services.
So, assuming the illegal aliens would be deported on a constant rate over the 4 years of Trump’s presidency, about 5 million would be deported in each year. Thus, $150 billion per year savings could not be realized until the fifth year after deportions begin. So the first year, the cost reduction would be 25% at the end of the first year, 50% at the end of the second, and so forth. Since the cost reduction would be zero on day one and 25% a year later, it would be realized at $260 million additional every month. So for running totals, you get: month 1 = .3 billion, month 2 = $.8 billion (that is month 1 savings for the first and second month, plus month 2 savings), month 3 = $1.6 billion.
At the end of the first year, $17.2 billion would be saved, and $157.5 billion expended.
At the end of the second year, a running total of $78.1 billion was saved, and $315 billion expended.
At the end of the third year, a running total of $73.4 billion was saved, and $372.5 billion expended.
At the end of the fourth year, a running total of $306.3 billion was saved, and $630 billion expended.
The break-even point comes 4 months later. At 52 months after implementation of the policy. At this point, the savings exceed the expenditures by $126 billion. This continues to grow at $150 billion every year forever.
Why will I not be surprised when Biden pardons all of them. As well as all of his staff and committees who went after trump.
Considering what they call us each year year after year that will be a savings even at that price.
And what price do you put on a human life?
Whatever the cost is, its the fault of the sorry democrats. They should never be put back in power again.