The American Immigration Council does not endorse or oppose candidates for elected office. We aim to provide an analysis of the election’s impact on the U.S. immigration system.
As politicians debate the fate of millions of illegal immigrants living in communities across the country, a new report details the devastating cost mass deportations would have on the United States and its economy. are.
Efforts to apprehend, detain, process, and remove 1 million illegal immigrants per year cost the U.S. government at least $88 billion annually, ultimately costing taxpayers, according to a report by the American Immigration Council. is estimated to reach up to nearly $1 trillion.
Beyond the fiscal costs, the report details how the U.S. economy would suffer if 4% of workers were deported. US gross domestic product (GDP) will fall from 4.2% to 6.8%. By comparison, during the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009, U.S. GDP contracted by 4.3%.
While some politicians treat mass deportation as a simple operation, the report dissects the process and shows that strengthening each aspect, from arrest to detention, processing and transfer, requires enormous It explains how this would require a large amount of money and an enormous commitment of resources and personnel. The cost of a one-million-person deportation system for one year alone would be enough to cover nearly twice the annual budget of the National Institutes of Health and 18 times what the entire world currently spends on cancer research each year. It’s the forehead.
To find and apprehend more than 13.3 illegal immigrants, the government would need to mobilize between 212,000 and 409,000 new civil servants and law enforcement officers. Even an operation to carry out 1 million arrests per year would require U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hire at least 31,000 new employees at a cost of at least $6.2 billion per year, compared to ICE’s current This is approximately the same amount as the entire budget. These estimates do not take into account additional labor, technology, legal costs, and other secondary costs that may be incurred by a mass recruitment strategy that involves a large amount of anxiety in the community. May be conservative.
The most expensive part of any effort to carry out mass deportations is new detention centers to hold potentially millions of people while their cases are processed. The report found that using the money paid by the Department of Homeland Security to establish and operate “soft-sided” detention facilities at the border, it would take an annual They estimate it could cost as much as $66 billion. Hundreds, if not thousands, of new facilities would need to be built to hold immigrants while they await their cases in immigration court. These cost estimates are also modest given the scale of detention imagined (for context, as of the end of 2022, a total of 1.9 million people were in federal, state, or local criminal detention across the United States). ).
The government will also need to significantly expand the current immigration court adjudication system, as people cannot be deported without first receiving a deportation order. There are currently fewer than 800 immigration judges who are already facing 3.7 million cases. Each judge utilizes the resources of a team of attorneys and clerks, and each case requires the presence of an ICE government prosecutor. A 10-year ramp-up of efforts to secure deportation orders to remove all illegal immigrants would require the hiring of nearly 2,000 new judges and the construction of more than 1,100 new courtrooms. The report estimates that increasing the capacity of immigration courts, which can handle an average of 1 million people a year, would cost a total of $12.6 billion annually.
Even if all that were possible, carrying out these removals would further increase costs. The report says it takes about 70 per year to carry out 1 million removal orders, due to the high number of undocumented immigrants from countries other than Mexico and Canada, and the need for air charter flights, which cost $17,000 per flight hour. It is estimated that it will cost $1 billion. However, many countries, including countries like Venezuela and China, do not allow the United States to conduct deportation flights, complicating efforts to deport many illegal aliens across the United States today. The cost of is only one relevant consideration.
In addition to the fiscal costs, there will also be economic impacts from mass deportations, including a $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion hit to GDP. Governments would also lose tax revenue, as they would lose $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in state and local taxes paid by illegal immigrants. The states most affected will be California, Texas, and Florida, but all will see population declines.
Some industries, such as construction, agriculture and services, will be particularly hard hit, with a combined loss of more than 2.5 million workers. For example, more than a third of the nation’s plasterers, masons, drywall installers, and roofers are undocumented. If that workforce were to disappear in the short term, construction costs would likely rise, new homes would take much longer to build, and the housing market would slow significantly.
Local economies will also be disrupted, as many illegal immigrants run businesses. The report estimates that undocumented entrepreneurs generated $27.1 billion in business income in 2022, all of which could be lost as businesses close due to mass deportations.
Up to 88,000 Americans may lose their jobs for every 1 million illegal immigrants deported due to lost workers, business closures, and resulting economic downturn, study suggests has been done.
Beyond the financial and economic costs, the report reveals a devastating impact on American families. 8.5 million Americans live in mixed-status households. Due to mass deportations, these households are stripped of their breadwinners and lose, on average, more than half of their income.
Policymakers need to be aware of how these proposals specifically impact not just immigrants themselves, but the country as a whole. There is no way to quantify the pain that families torn apart by mass deportation would feel, but any effort to round up and deport millions of people would be enormous and devastating to the American people. The report makes clear that this comes at a cost.
Policymakers need to pursue a path to permanent status for people who have lived here for years while increasing resources to enforcement and adjudication systems, rather than destabilizing the economy due to harsh enforcement. There is.
Submitted by: Deportation, Donald Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
