Deporting illegals saves money
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From 2015 to 2022, per capita deportation costs in 2024 dollars averaged $12,124. They range from $9,767 under Obama, $11,637 for Trump, and $15,499 for Biden. The higher numbers for Biden occurred as the budget rose, but the number of deportations excluding Title 42 fell significantly. AIC claims that the legal processing costs are $2,570. If we just assume that their estimate is correct, it raises the total per capita cost of deportation to $14,705. But even this is too high for several reasons, including the fact that 1.46 million illegals have already had their deportations approved by U.S. Department of Justice immigration judges.
Even if we include the entire Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) budget, which involves many other customs activities, the per-deportee costs from 2002 to 2022 average $13,706 in 2024 dollars. The year with the most deportations, 2004, saw 1.4 million deportees with a total ICE budget in 2024 dollars of $6.1 billion, or $4,354 per deportee.
Administrations with more deportations have lower per-deportee costs due to economies of scale. If Trump really does plan on carrying out large-scale deportations, the costs for each person may be far lower than during his first administration.
These numbers also assume that the policies of sanctuary cities and states remain unchanged. Still, after Trump’s border czar Tom Homan threatened to put Denver Mayor Michael Johnston in jail after the mayor claimed he was willing to go to jail to protect the illegal aliens, Johnston appeared to backtrack on his promise. If sanctuary cities start assisting the federal government’s deportation efforts, the costs might also come down.
These conservative estimates are less than one-sixth to one-seventh the per deportee estimate of the AIC.
Another estimate AIC put out is a “one-time” cost of $316 billion to deport 13 million, which wasn’t reported by the media when they released their report in October. That comes to “at a minimum” $24,231 per deportee and shows the sensitivity of their estimates. But even that is roughly twice the estimate provided here.
In September, the Deputy Director for ICE noted that of the 7.4 million “non-detained” noncitizens with pending cases that were released into the United States, 662,566 have a criminal record. Our estimates indicate that it would cost about $8 billion to arrest and deport these criminals.
By contrast, if these illegal aliens commit a crime resembling the most serious crime that they have previously been convicted or charged with, the victimization costs amount to at least $166.5 billion. The National Institute of Justice estimated the costs to victims by including medical bills, lost wages, social/victim services, property loss/damage, police/fire service costs, and pain and suffering.
The costs of crime are roughly at least 21 times higher than deportation costs.
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While not all illegal immigrants engage in crime beyond actually being in the US illegally, those who do contribute to lawlessness cost more than the costs of deportation. Another aspect of mass separation is that over time it should make illegals less likely to come to the US knowing that they will be deported. What we do know is that with Biden's open borders policy, many countries literally emptied their prison of convicted criminals and sent them to the US.
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