Cost of deportation negates any savings
I have been reading, over the years, many letters that have recommended massive deportation of undocumented immigrants. First, we would have to create a special police force to round up all these “illegal aliens.”
Then, every citizen of the United States would have to be issued an internal passport of identification — a huge expense. The undocumented folks would then have to be arrested and placed in short-term detention, often with their American-born progeny, and transported to holding facilities.
These facilities would need housing (with heat/air conditioning and electricity), food, sanitation and guards. These facilities would have to be placed all over the U.S.
How would these people be transported to these facilities ... bus, train, plane? Who would pay this expense? If 1,000 people were in each facility, we would need up to 12,000 facilities (assuming 12 million people). It would take years to process their deportation papers.
The cost of building these facilities alone would run into the billions. To guard these facilities, we would probably need 100,000 men and women. The cost of training, billeting and paying this new force would be around $5 billion to $10 billion to start, and about $5 billion annually.
In the meantime, what would be the consequences? Almost all of the adults in this group work somewhere. Who will replace them? Will their employers be notified? What happens to their bank and checking accounts?
What happens to the economies of these communities when these people are deported? Of course, who would represent these people in their appeals?
Many of these people work in jobs that the average American will not do, including cleaning up hospital waste, office buildings and hotels; as well as working in agriculture, meatpacking, fast-food retail, lawn care and restaurants.
So what would be the cost of building up to 12,000 facilities, transporting these folks, feeding them, guarding them, providing them with medical care and electricity? The cost would be astronomical, and with the concurrent loss of a vital part of the workforce and the elimination of their buying power, the gross national product would take a severe hit.
The same folks who are calling for this draconian action are most concerned with slashing government expenses, shrinking the government and reducing taxes. How do they square this circle?