Give Us Liberty

Save Money: Deport All Illegal Aliens

December 10th, 2010 Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com

The next time President Obama feigns concern over the national deficit, Americans should ask him why he does not take a simple step that would free up $1 trillion a decade, assure his social spending went to his fellow countrymen, and allow one of our allies to rebuild its traditional way of life: He could deport every illegal immigrant in the United States.
The facts are out: deportation would be considerably less expensive than the unsustainable influx of illegal aliens who all-too-readily enroll in our entitlement programs. On December 3, the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs of the Department of Homeland Security, Nelson Peacock, responded to a letter from a number of senators about the costs of deporting all illegal aliens. “Our conservative estimate suggests that ICE would require a budget of more than $135 billion to apprehend, detain and remove the nation’s entire illegal immigrant population,” he wrote.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) – the most influential “progressive” think tank in Washington, which was founded with seed money from George Soros – released a report in March that provided a slightly higher estimate. CAP forecast it would cost taxpayers $285 billion over five years to “snare the 10.8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.” The report assumed “20 percent of the current population [of illegals], or 2.16 million people, would depart before any contact with authorities,” that is, they would voluntarily self-deport. The residue would cost $200 billion to deport. The Center padded the total with another $85 billion to hold the line for five years.
Given the Center’s political orientation, we may safely assume theirs is the upper ceiling. But how would these estimates compare with the status quo?
In July, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released a study, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, stating illegal immigrants cost U.S. taxpayers $113 billion every year in benefits at the local, state, and federal levels combined.
Under the most liberal estimate, the five-year cost of deporting every illegal immigrant in the United States would pay for itself in 2.5 years. It would be just 14 months according to ICE.
Over ten years, the United States would save $1.13 trillion, or $845 billion in the first decade minus CAP’s estimated deportation costs.
These estimates, of course, only tally economic savings to the government. They do not reflect the substantial economic and personal well-being each American will experience from lower rates of drug trafficking, murders, gang activity, kidnappings, sexual assaults, crime, home invasions, overcrowded schools, hospital closures caused by soaring medical costs, job losses, prison detentions, bilingual status, property damage, environmental degradation, and overburdened infrastructure. The more educated children of illegals, whom Obama hopes to reward with the DREAM Act, would squeeze native-born citizens out of competitive slots in universities and careers; deporting them, as I have suggested, would open up educational and employment opportunities for our own citizens. These benefits are truly incalculable, yet they are never mentioned as part of the immigration debate.
Some may object that deporting 11-13 million illegal immigrants is impossible. History proves not only that it can be done but that it has been done.
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