Faced with an overwhelming public mandate in support of President-elect Donald Trump’s America First border security policies, illegal immigration advocates are growing increasingly desperate to maintain the status quo that has left the country in shambles. So, in addition to the usual propaganda from corporate media, the tactics now include shamelessly inflating the cost of Trump’s enhanced deportation program to scare the American public into opposing a policy that they recently supported.  

In October of last year, the anti-borders American Immigration Council (AIC) proclaimed that the cost of deporting one million illegal aliens each year would be $88 billion annually. The activist talking heads on network and cable news quickly latched onto that figure and repeatedly cite it without scrutiny.  

In a recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, AIC Senior Fellow Aaron Reuchlin-Melnick stated that, “at a minimum,” the Trump deportation plan would cost $316 billion.  

As with most sensational claims made by the anti-borders lobby, the latest attempt to scare the American public into submission falls apart under scrutiny. John R. Lott, Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, did a deep dive into AIC’s claims and found a number of assumptions designed to lead readers to  predetermined conclusion.  

The costs of detention account for roughly 75 percent of AIC’s cost estimates. Lott explained how, even though most aliens are held in detention for under two months on average, AIC assumes that the federal government would have to build 216 new detention facilities each year to accommodate the deportees. Since facilities like these are built to last for years, however, the reality is that ongoing construction would not be necessary.  

AIC also made its projections based on a $237 daily cost of detaining aliens. Lott pointed out that federal medium security prisons in 2022 spent $122.50 daily for inmates, and high-security prisons spent $164.87. Privately-operated prisons for federal inmates spend $93.50 per inmate daily. Does anyone really think the administration that is implementing the Department of Government Efficiency is going to spend more on alien lawbreakers headed to deportation? 

All this hand-wringing over costs is rich coming from people who have never met a federal expenditure they didn’t like until the election results came in last Nov. 5. There was no similar concern expressed over a report that illegal immigration creates an annual fiscal burden of $150.7 billion for U.S. taxpayers. The Biden administration allocated more than $770 million in 2023 to a handful of sanctuary cities to house illegal migrants. That money went to places like New York City’s The Row Hotel in Times Square, which filled all of its 1,331 rooms with migrants who proceeded to trash the luxury property. The city also arranged daily meals for the migrants, with many of those meals thrown in the trash untouched.    

This represents only a small part of the money spent to facilitate the left-wing fetish for illegal immigration. A report by Lott and RealClear Investigations found that crime committed by illegal aliens has cost the United States more than $166.5 billion, a figure calculated from the costs of crime taken from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations.  

There is another important distinction between the costs of Trump’s border policies and those we have been living with under the Biden regime. As incoming border czar Tom Homan recently explained on the Immigration Reform Law Institute’s “No Border, No Country” podcast, that even though Trump’s deportation plan will not be cheap it is, at least, a one-time cost. With speedy deportations and a fortified border, the days of five-and six-time deportees will soon be a thing of the past.

Compare that to the foolishness of continuing down our current path. If Biden, Alejandro Mayorkas, and other likeminded people have their way, the flow of migrants into the U.S. would only increase, and deportations would be rare. Those here illegally would require an endless supply of housing, medical care, education, and other needs, all paid for on the backs of U.S. taxpayers.  

“This is in perpetuity, this doesn’t end,” Homan said of current spending on illegal aliens in the U.S. The same people creating hysteria about alleged deportation costs have no issue with the billions we have already wasted on policies that have put the nation in disarray.  

Be skeptical of nightmarish price tags for long-overdue deportation programs, especially those presented by people who want more of the same anarchy you just voted to end.