Study: Deporting illegal aliens cheaper than allowing them to stay in U.S.

Above Photograph: Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, is hellbent on allowing millions of illegal aliens — regardless of their criminal histories and sexual assaults on minors — into the United States.

Whenever most Democrats, immigration activists or members of the nation’s news media find themselves losing a debate on how to give citizenship to perhaps as many as 22 million “undocumented immigrants,” they will without a doubt say something to the effect “what are you going to do? You can’t deport all illegal aliens. It would cost too much.”

Even members of the GOP, conservative pundits, and most radio/TV talk show hosts often allow the pro-illegal alien advocates to skate past the mendacious claim that deportation “would cost too much” and through the conservatives’ silence the majority of Americans are force-fed yet another BIG LIE.

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) research reveals that the cost of deportation is much smaller than the net fiscal drain created by the average illegal immigrant. The CIS’s director of research, Steven Camarota, has been highly vocal about his group’s findings, but most citizens are being victimized by a national news media that places their political agenda ahead of their duty to provide the public with honest and accurate news stories.

Camarota and his research team revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported:

“The average deportation cost as $10,854 in FY 2016. In FY 2012, ICE removed 71 percent more aliens with a similar budget, creating an average inflation-adjusted cost of $5,915. This compares to an average lifetime net fiscal drain (taxes paid minus services used) of $65,292 for each illegal immigrant, excluding their descendants.

“This net figure is based on fiscal estimates of immigrants by education level from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS). The total fiscal drain for the entire illegal population is estimated at $746.3 billion. Of course, simply because deportation is much less costly than allowing illegal immigrants to stay does not settle the policy questions surrounding illegal immigration as there are many factors to consider.”

Deportation costs:

1. In April of this year, ICE reported that the average cost of a deportation, also referred to as a “removal,” was $10,854 in FY 2016 including apprehension, detention, and processing.
2. Partly due to policies adopted in the second term of the Obama administration, ICE removed nearly 170,000 fewer aliens in 2016 than in 2012, even though it actually spent 8 percent more in 2016 in inflation-adjusted dollars. The removal of so many more illegal immigrants in FY 2012 means that the average cost per removal in that year was $5,915, adjusted for inflation.
3. If the average cost of a deportation was what it had been in FY 2012, then the larger enforcement budget in FY 2016 would have allowed for 200,000 more removals without spending additional money.

Costs of illegal immigrants:

1. Researchers agree that illegal immigrants overwhelmingly have modest levels of education — most have not completed high school or have only a high school education. There is also agreement that immigrants with this level of education are a significant net fiscal drain, creating more in costs for government than they pay in taxes.
2. The NAS estimated the lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) of immigrants based on their educational attainment. Averaging those estimates and applying them to the education level of illegal immigrants shows a net fiscal drain of $65,292 per illegal — excluding any costs for their children.
3. Based on this estimate, there is a total lifetime fiscal drain of $746.3 billion. This assumes 11.43 million illegal immigrants are in the country based on the U.S. government’s most recent estimate.
4. The fiscal cost created by illegal immigrants of $746.3 billion compares to total a cost of deportation of $124.1 billion, assuming a FY 2016 cost per deportation, or $67.6 billion using FY 2012 deportation costs.