As President Donald Trump rolls out more details of a plan that could deport millions of undocumented U.S. immigrants, the true cost of such an undertaking is coming into sharper focus.
In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Trump outlined what he called his administration’s “swift and strong action to secure the southern border.” He said his administration would be “throwing” gang members, drug dealers and criminal aliens out of the country and “will not let them back in.”
Until there are more details of the plan, much of which will require congressional approval, estimates are sketchy. But by any full accounting, the fiscal and economic costs would be huge.
Recently the Trump administration has backed off earlier pledges to deport anyone in the country illegally — Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Thursday “there will be no mass deportations” after he met with Mexican officials.
Still, the Trump administration also this week directed government agencies to, among other things, begin rounding up and deporting anyone in the country illegally, whether or not they have committed serious crimes.
If the U.S. would seek to remove the entire population of the estimated 11 million undocumented workers now in the U.S., it would cost upwards of half trillion dollars, according to one estimate. It could also wipe out a chunk of the American economy roughly the size of the annual gross domestic product of Texas.
The new Trump initiative includes hiring thousands of new immigration agents, building new detention centers and constructing a southern border wall that was a centerpiece of Trump’s election campaign.
Breaking down deportation costs
Last March, American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute led by former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, estimated it would take between $100 billion and $300 billion to arrest and remove “all undocumented immigrants residing in the country, a process that we estimate would take 20 years,” the group said.
Once those undocumented immigrants were removed, it would take another $315 billion in higher enforcing costs to stop them from coming back, according to AAF.
That estimate includes just the hard cost of removing undocumented workers; it doesn’t take into account the economic impact that would result from the removal of some 11 million people from the labor force and the resulting loss of consumer spending.
AAF estimated the removal of that many people would shrink the pool of U.S. workers by 6.4 percent, which means that 20 years from now, the U.S. economy would be nearly 6 percent smaller.
That works out to a loss of $1.6 trillion in lost wages, spending and other economic activity.
To put that in perspective, the gross domestic product for Texas last year was about $1.5 trillion, second behind California.
Trump knows a guy who knows a guy who can help to lower costs significantly. :ngakak
:nerd a dat a him favorite line but di big joke is di trumpets dem whey always a jump pan things a seh dat cost is too much :ngakak
Morning , Marie and Met.
Marie, fun and joke aside, they would do some illegal transports fi true.
5 trillion is far more than yhe cost if the Afghan war which is about 1.5 trillion. Homelans security multi agencies cost less fi run from 2002 till now.
Well, with his history of not paying his suppliers and sub-contractors, he will only pay a fraction of the total cost for building the wall.
Why anyone would want to work for this guy or sell him anything without cash on delivery is mind-boggling.
Trump can start by scraping up the dutty nastiness of white plains road , utica , nostrand , flatbush and jamaica avenue.
You have too much time pon you hands and know dem where abouts too well :travel you turn somebody now and want it all for your self :maho
His crackdowns are meant to make him and his cronies very rich or richer, even his red neck KKK attorney general(he is the one revamping existing laws and rewriting new ones to send even the innocent to detention/jail/prison), one of the many reasons orange man REFUSE to disclose his tax information is not only the putun/russia scandal, but his tax info would show his stake in or links to shell companies that are heavily invested in private detention centers and prisons which are about to be constructed en masse to accommodate the massive roundup/crackdown, the DHS director smell the rat and if his previous comments on his visit to central america is sincere then it could be a case where his conscience might be getting the better of him(don’t know), you’d probably see signs of it if he resign a year or 2 from now if the administration is putting pressure on him, also watch for another sign if or when the current chief of staff resign, also pay attention to the judicial systems who are planning for him, notably the supreme court.
There is no other private prison that can out do the GEO group.They are global, but ban from certain places because of their treatment of prisoners.
I doubt the China handle the way you put it; if anything, Trump owe on some real estate…he’s a bum and good for that.
This fascist administration is simply one to monitor beyond the noise they’re making.
Met….mommy and aunty day? You gine quiet
Sleep day after cleaning
You more than deserve it since you have to sort,research, contact and post for us daily.
We should a pay you including paid vacation and a helper as bonus :kiss
@Met…yuh see he announced he aint going to the correspondent dinner…lol…petty brat…sumn soon reach him
That’s like a president not attending his inauguration….no sah…thats how I look at it anyhow…media should boycott it anyway
marie he knows not the importance of these functions, put hog eena white shut him walla een a mud mud, never see come see bhutto millionaire big old dutty tenant yard carry go bring come passa passa class less white trash. u see him detain muhammed ali ex wife khalilah and her son on feb the 6th, while coming from Jamaica, they let go the woman and hold her son a question him bout him name and religion him mother frantically asking why hold her son, and the ops couldn’t go in there cause its federal property, they finally release after bout 2 hours
nearly 100 reach home yesterday, some a dem have convictions the man pon the florida station got the call from jamaica