The fallacious fabricated cost of mass deportation
By Fred Elbel on 16 September 2015
A recent article discusses the purported cost of deporting illegal aliens who have evaded capture in our country (Jorge Ramos Proposes Open Border, Escalates Attacks On Donald Trump, by Julia Hahn, Breitbart, September 15, 2015):
In a recent segment on his Fusion television show America, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos “does the math” on presidential contender Donald Trump’s pledge to deport 11 million illegal aliens.
Ramos argues that manually deporting the nation’s entire illegal alien population in the span of two years would come at a one-time, catch-all price of $137 billion.
However Ramos, who has expressed support for an open-border immigration policy, fails to inform viewers of the far greater costs that could be saved by deporting the illegal population– a net total of $2.7 trillion in savings. Nor does he mention the benefits to community safety, public education, and our nation’s strained entitlement programs.
Ramos arrives at his $137 billion figure by applying the average $12,500 cost of deporting a single person to the 11 million illegal aliens in the country. Assuming Ramos’ methodology is correct (is it not), Ramos’ estimate means that for 3.6 percent of the federal budget the United States could permanently resolve its illegal immigration problem.
Ramos’ methodology, however, is fatally flawed. First, and most importantly, Ramos fails to take into account the funds that would be saved from removing the illegal population.
Studies show that, due to all of the federal benefits illegal aliens receive at taxpayers’ expense, the cost of keeping illegal aliens in the United States far exceeds Ramos’ inflated cost estimate for deportations.
In fact, deporting the illegal alien population would actually save U.S. taxpayers a net total of $2.7 trillion over the next 50 years, according to a 2010 study from Heritage scholar Robert Rector.
Each illegal alien household costs taxpayers a net total (i.e. federal benefits illegals receive minus taxes illegals contribute) of $719,350 over the course of that household’s lifetime. This is because the benefits illegal aliens receive in education, subsidized housing, food stamps, and medical expenses from U.S. taxpayers outweigh that which they contribute through taxes. Experts estimate that there are around 3.88 million illegal alien households in the United States– meaning that the removal of the illegal alien population would results in $2.7 trillion of savings.
As Rector wrote in his 2010 report, few “really understand the current size of government and the scope of redistribution… Unlawful immigrants, on average, are always tax consumers; they never once generate a ‘fiscal surplus’ that can be used to pay for government benefits elsewhere in society.”...
Ramos similarly did not tell his viewers that the removal of the illegal alien population would have a long-term positive impact on crime levels. As Breitbart News has previously reported, government data reveals there is a strong correlation between immigration and crime. This high correlation extends into second- and third-generation of immigrants, as the children of immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than their parents. This observation has caused Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald to observe, “unless we can prevent immigrants from having children, a high level of immigration translates to increased levels of crime.”
Ramos also did not feel it necessary to mention how a reduction in the illegal population would also reduce the opportunity for legal chain migration through anchor babies– thus passing down taxpayers savings to generations of American citizens.
Nor did Ramos discuss how reductions in the illegal alien population would help to improve overburdened schools whose educational resources are being sapped by mass immigration...
The boisterous propaganda of open borders apologists such as Ramos conveniently ignores the staggering costs of government-imposed mass immigration. Their arguments reveal a fundamental lack of actuarial integrity. Those who have followed CAIRCO research on mass immigration are aware that the fiscal cost and social burden of mass immigration on Americans are overwhelming. The fabric of American society is being shredded while our government forces Americans to pay the cost of their own destruction.
The article appropriately identifies the impact of mass immigration on community safety, public education, and our entitlement programs. However, it fails to identify another long-term consequence of immigration-driven forced population growth: the cost to our sustaining ecosystems and environmental quality of life. These long-term consequences are significant, but are discounted by myopic present-value cost accounting.
It's also worth noting that both Ramos and the article base their cost projections on a false estimate of the number of illegal aliens living in the United States. Ramos bases his deportation cost of $137 billion on a purported number of 11 million illegal aliens living in America. This originated with the Department of Homeland Security, which in December 2003 estimated 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens resided in the United States and that 700,000 new illegals enter each year and remain in the country. Those estimates have not changed for twelve years, even though the official annual increase alone would yield an corrected estimate of 15.7 million to 19.7 million illegal aliens today (not adjusting for Obama's unconstitutional 2014 executive amnesty).
Deeper analysis reveals that their could be 20 million to 40 million illegal aliens living in the United States. Thus Ramos' deportation cost could easily be double his $137 billion estimate - but the cost savings would be proportionately greater. In other words, sending illegal aliens home would save a gargantuan amount of money when all costs are considered.
However, we don't have to physically deport any illegal aliens (other than criminals). That's a straw man argument contrived by the Chamber of Commerce and open borders apologists. All we need to do is make it impossible for illegals to work, namely by making e-Verify mandatory. If illegal aliens can't work, they will voluntarily return home the same way they came here. At their own expense.
CAIRCO Research
Additional research
Summer 2007 Social Contract issue How many illegal aliens are in the U.S.?
The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer, Robert Rector and Jason Richwine, Ph.D., Heritage Foundation, May 6, 2013.
Every deported illegal household saves taxpayers more than $700,000, Breitbart, August 24, 2015.
The Financial Costs of Illegal Immigration, National Center for Policy Analysis, November 11, 2014.
The Fiscal Impact of Immigration, Steven Camarota, National Review, May 14, 2013.