Border wall would pay for itself in a few years in savings on benefits for migrants

Paul Bedard:

Even if President Trump's border wall cost the highest estimation of $16 billion, it would save that amount in just the first three years of operation by eliminating the lifetime cost to taxpayers for letting 170,000 slip in every year, according to a new analysis.

The authoritative Center for Immigration Studies Thursday crunched the numbers in a new analysis and found that even if the wall failed to stop the bulk of illegals, it would still pay for itself in a decade by cutting welfare, education, and other associated lifetime costs to federal, state and local taxpayers to care for undocumented immigrants.

"If a border wall stopped a small fraction of the illegal immigrants who are expected to come in the next decade, the fiscal savings from having fewer illegal immigrants in the country would be sufficient to cover the costs of the wall," said the report from Steven A. Camarota, director of research for CIS.

He explained that costs are driven by the low education levels for illegals, more than half of whom have not made it through high school.

"In short, illegal border-crossers are a large net fiscal drain because of their education levels and this fact drives the results. Therefore, a border wall would pay for itself even if it only stops a modest fraction of those expected to successfully cross in the next decade," he wrote.
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If the wall is paid for through money taken from drug dealers, the payoff would be even sooner.