Thread: Cost to Remove 12M Illegal Immigrants Huge

Cost to Remove 12M Illegal Immigrants Huge
By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer
37 minutes ago


As Congress debates immigration reforms, some experts say the most extreme proposal — deporting millions of illegal immigrants — would be a huge legal and logistical morass, and ruinously expensive, too.


Officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which would be responsible for deportations, said they have no projections on what it would take to rid the United States of an estimated 12 million people.

But the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, has put the cost at $215 billion over five years.

The study assumed that a crackdown would prompt a quarter of the nation's illegal immigrants to leave voluntarily, leaving 9 million men, women and children to deport.

"I think a lot of people are making emotional calls on this issue without thinking through the cost to taxpayers," said study author Rajeev Goyle, a lecturer at Wichita State University. "It would be an unbearable cost that would bankrupt the treasury. It would cost more annually than the entire budget of the Department of Homeland Security, twice that of the annual cost of the war in Iraq."

Finding and catching people would be the most expensive part, about $158 billion, Goyle said. The study calculated it would cost an additional $34 billion to detain them, $3 billion for extra beds, $11 billion for legal processing and $9 billion to put them on buses or airplanes.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., author of a get-tough immigration bill, said the government has no intention of trying to deport 12 million people.

"Nobody is seriously proposing that, because that will require a massive infiltration of law enforcement officials and will disrupt the economy," said Sensenbrenner told CBS' "Face the Nation" this week.

But his bill and several others would make living in the United States illegally a felony. And felons without legal immigration status are subject to deportation.

In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security deported about 200,000 people; an additional 1,035,000 returned to their countries of origin when caught by federal authorities, according to the Office of Immigration Statistics.

Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates limits on immigration, said he does not believe a mass deportation "has ever been seriously suggested. It's the straw man that proponents of amnesty set out there so they can set it on fire."

FAIR's projection is that if current laws protecting the borders and penalizing employers who hire illegal workers are enforced, many illegal immigrants will leave the country.

"Once we get their numbers down, cut in half say, or three quarters, what you do with those that remain, that's something we can figure out," he said. "It becomes a more manageable problem. Three million is obviously better than 12 million."

Mehlman said military bases could be converted to detention centers, buses and airplanes could be arranged to take people back to the country of their birth, and legal processes could be streamlined.

Peter Schey, president and executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law Foundation, said it would be "absolutely absurd, impossible" to protect the legal rights of millions of people facing deportation.

"Unless you want to schedule deportation hearings 20 or 30 years into the future, there's no way it could be done," he said.

Carlos Portillo, who owns La Fuente Restaurant, one of the most popular restaurants in Tucson, Ariz., said the sudden loss of workers from mass deportations would be economically devastating for this country.

"Right now everything that's happening in the United States, the restaurant and hospitality industry, all the housing and building construction, all the farming, this is being done mainly by illegal immigrants," he said. "This country needs these illegal workers more than the illegal workers need this country."

http://news.yahoo.com

Ya........and how much more is it going to cost to KEEP them! They are never going to round em up in a day and maybe if they started clearing the pile they'd find plenty of citizens underneath. It all starts with the first step.

Put a bounty on the heads of every illegal alien and give US citizens and legal residents arrest powers as deputized agents of the federal government, and millions of Americans will gladly round up these lawbreaking parasites for as little as $100 a head, cheap at the price considering the hundreds of billions illegals cost us in money alone. That's what a loyal, patriotic united America under the law would do; use it's own citizenry to help enforce national security and defend public safety.

We have enough ex-military, law enforcement, and federal, state, county, and local government personnel alone willing to perform this function to make a national bounty program successful. The Associated Press doesn't even call illegal aliens illegal aliens. They continue to refer to them as "immigrants" without any reference to their criminal unlawful status. I expect AP writers to be as biased and ignorant as their newsfeeds are. In addition to a nationwide bounty program, deputized personnel could also act as ad hoc Border Patrol and ICE agents to both stop illegal border crossings as well as arrest lawbreaking employers who have illegal aliens in their employ.

Again, using the already existing US citizen and legal resident with a background in law enforcement and security coupled with other citizens trained to arrest, detain, and process immigration criminals; the cost of removing millions of illegal aliens is well within the acceptable costs of providing national security which after all is a priceless quantity for which no cost is too high to preserve.

While I don't believe that there's a chance on earth that we're ever going to deport these people, I do wonder how expensive deportation would have been compared to the costs we're going to shoulder should they decide to start riots across the country.

I think riots are a real possiblilty if our "guests" don't get their way.

215 Billion to deport them......400 BILLION + to keep them. Sounds like a deal to me!!

Hey we will likely spend a trillion dollars in a worthless war over in Iraq when all is said and done! Plus we could have up to 3000 killed and 20k badly injured, we will pay their disability and medical until they pass on likely.
What's a couple hundred billion to do the RIGHT thing? At the very least once we enforce the law on employers and roll the carpet up on the workers, they will return to their country on their own. It won't cost what they say.

Once home they can start putting pressure on the scum that run that place and take over, like they wish to here.

They have land, they have Oil
they have no right our Country spoil

for starters, I think because Kennedy, Kerry and McCain are so dead set on illegals being legal, that each of them should take no less than 100 home with them and provide housing, food, clothes, healthcare and other benefits at their own expense, because unlike the average citizen, they can afford to.

As a privilege of being the 'guest' of these Senators, these illegals will have access to their personal identification, automobiles, home security systems, etc.

Thank you, Captain America!!!

Captain America, I've had to refer to or repost this about half a dozen times because a lot of these pulitizer prize winning genius news reporters out there are too inept to read this website. Thanks for expanding on what I posted.

Originally Posted by Coto

Idea is this:

Illegal Aliens get Federal Fugitive status. (well, they are!)
There are bountys on federal fugitives, so...
post bounties on illegals taken into custody.

Then watch that 10 million figure drop like a rock 'cause you'll have every bounty hunter in the country after 'em, and bounty hunters don't fail. I got a friend in Oklahoma who's a bounty hunter, and there is no way I would want to get into a situation with him after my arse. MOD EDIT

http://www.aetv.com/dog_the_bounty_h...episode=113288

http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-edit-84097.html

Just the send the amount to the country of that illegal, have them at a location such as an old Military base not being used no longer and have those countries bring there aircraft in and pick them up, if they dont we do send them back on planes, trains and if they dont pay up we start a debt and if we own that country then we take it off that debt. We do it on trade why cant we do it in this manner.

T

20k badly injured, we will pay their disability and medical until they pass on likely.

Unfortunately, our gov't refuses to pay medical and disability for literally thousands of vets. Every time the start cutting the budget the vets get a little more taken away. Illegal aliens are more important to our covernment than veterans.