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Mass Deportations Would Leave America Poorer
Townhall.com ^ | March 25, 2016 | Jeff Jacoby

Posted on 03/25/2016 9:44:05 AM PDT by Kaslin

MORE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS have been expelled from the United States during Barack Obama's presidency than ever before. Since 2009, the Obama administration has removed 2.5 million people from American soil — an enormous crackdown that has consumed an enormous amount of money. The federal government now spends more on border and immigration enforcement than it spends on all other criminal law-enforcement agencies — including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the US Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — combined.

So many aliens have been removed on Obama's watch that critics ranging from The Economist to La Raza have dubbed him the "deporter-in-chief."

But if Donald Trump or Ted Cruz get their way, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Trump tells voters that as president he will eject undocumented aliens "so fast that your head will spin." When asked how long he would need to remove all of the estimated 11.3 million illegal immigrants living in the country, he has said it should take no more than "18 months to two years if properly handled."

Cruz also wants to kick out all unlawful immigrants. "Yes, we should deport them," he told a TV interviewer. "Anyone here illegally that's apprehended should be deported." Cruz's campaign website dismisses the millions removed under Obama as merely "a fraction of what we could accomplish if we had a President who actually forced DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] to do its job."

The eviction of more than 11 million immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom are peaceful and productive, is a mad idea. Polls consistently show that Americans oppose mass deportations. A president attempting to carry out such a policy would unleash a frightful wave of social and political turmoil.

Then there are the fiscal costs.

The American Action Forum, a center-right think tank headed by economist Doug Holtz-Eakin (former director of the Congressional Budget Office), calculated last year that to expel all undocumented immigrants living in the United States would take 20 years and cost the federal government at least $400 billion in extra spending. Now, in a new study, the think tank details the enormous increase in resources that would be needed to pull off such a massive population transfer in just two years.

Evicting immigrants is a four-step process. They must be apprehended, detained, prosecuted, and transported. To track down and apprehend unlawful immigrants, the federal government currently employs 4,800 immigration-enforcement officers. But the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would need more than 90,000 enforcement agents in order to apprehend millions of illegal aliens in just two years.

Today, arrested aliens are detained in 250 detention facilities, which hold about 34,000 people at any given time. But a two-year detention timetable would necessitate a tenfold increase in capacity — the number of detention facilities would have to soar to more than 2,500, with beds for 348,000. The government would also need far more than the 58 immigration courts that currently adjudicate removal cases; the report estimates that another 1,258 courts would have to be established, and another 30,000 government attorneys hired.

Even more staggering is the equipment that would be required to deport everyone within two years. The 1,400 chartered flights needed annually for deportations now would skyrocket to more than 17,000. The 2,500 bus trips would explode to 30,000.

And when all the illegal migrants were gone, America would find itself reeling from a self-inflicted economic wound. The elimination of 6.4 percent of the US labor force would wipe out $1 trillion in economic activity. Two years into the next president's term, we would be mired in another deep recession, more painful than the last one.

Mass deportations would leave America poorer, its government more swollen, and its social fabric in tatters. Americans will never go along with such destructive idiocy, no matter whom they choose as president.


TOPICS: Cheese, Moose, Sister
KEYWORDS: aliens; cultistsfortrump; deportation; growupalready; ice; immigration; stupidtopics; trumpistindenial
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1 posted on 03/25/2016 9:44:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Regular congestion of organisms will ultimately result in regular defections.


2 posted on 03/25/2016 9:45:35 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET (urope. Why do they put up with this.)
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To: Kaslin

Bullpoop, 95% don’t pay taxes and most all are attached to our welfare state.
The teachers union loses since in states like California half the kids might go home with their parents.


3 posted on 03/25/2016 9:46:29 AM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: Kaslin

It would leave the wealthier poorer and the rest of America richer. Mass immigration only benefits the people who own everything because it drives the cost of goods up and the cost of labor down. That is why they do it,!there is money and power for those on top because they are essentially stealing our country away and selling it for a dime on the dollar.


4 posted on 03/25/2016 9:46:55 AM PDT by WMarshal (Trump 2016 (and 2020)!)
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To: Kaslin

We’d be poorer because on their way back to whence they came a lot of these people would steal things from us.

Not that they don’t do that already.


5 posted on 03/25/2016 9:46:55 AM PDT by MeganC (The Republic of The United States of America: 7/4/1776 to 6/26/2015 R.I.P.)
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To: Kaslin

Obama deports them and then lets them back in. That’s not a good statistic no matter how you spin it.


6 posted on 03/25/2016 9:47:32 AM PDT by Brilliant
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To: Kaslin
Poorer ... Richer, safer.
7 posted on 03/25/2016 9:47:40 AM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: Kaslin

Will it cost money to deport illegals?

Sure.

But as with anything else, you spend a little money in preventative maintenance now so that you don’t have to spend a lot of money later on repairs.


8 posted on 03/25/2016 9:48:54 AM PDT by Yashcheritsiy (You can't have a constitution without a country to go with it)
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To: Kaslin

That is pure stupidity. This writer belongs in a zoo.


9 posted on 03/25/2016 9:49:14 AM PDT by mulligan (I)
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To: Kaslin

If this country really is getting rich off the backs of illegal immigrants, then we should deport them and be poorer. I don’t think what he is saying is true but if it is, then we are profiting from something akin to slave labor. Get rid of them and give the jobs to Americans. If that means costs go up, so be it.


10 posted on 03/25/2016 9:49:34 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: Kaslin
Evicting immigrants is a four-step process. They must be apprehended, detained, prosecuted, and transported.

Getting them to leave is a cheap, easy, two step process. Step one, impose fines on any business that employs illegals. Step two, cut off all government benefits for illegals - saving the government money.

Denied any source of income they evict themselves.

11 posted on 03/25/2016 9:50:02 AM PDT by MaxFlint
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To: Kaslin

ROTFL! More “media” nonsense.


12 posted on 03/25/2016 9:50:03 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (America is not a dump, sewer or "refugee" camp. It's my home.)
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To: A CA Guy

They must only be talking sales taxes. They pay nothing else.


13 posted on 03/25/2016 9:52:35 AM PDT by napscoordinator (Trump/Hunter, jr for President/Vice President 2016)
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To: Kaslin
Evicting immigrants is a four-step process. They must be apprehended, detained, prosecuted, and transported.

Nope, that's why the idiot author thinks it is so expensive. Simply (1) Make employers criminally responsible for hiring them, (2) Make it unlawful to extend any government benefits or privileges (e.g. driver's license) to them, and (3) Make it unlawful to provide lodging or to sell automobiles to them. They will leave themselves.

14 posted on 03/25/2016 9:55:14 AM PDT by LambSlave
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To: MaxFlint
Step one, impose fines on any business that employs illegals.

Laws are already on the books...they simply need to be enforced. You don't have to 'round' anybody up. Just hit their employers. No jobs and they leave. And it wouldn't take long...a couple of company presidents being perp walked for employing illegals will result in a huge number of unemployed illegals.

15 posted on 03/25/2016 9:56:20 AM PDT by pgkdan (The Silent Majority Stands With TRUMP!)
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To: Kaslin
Mass Deportations Would Leave America Poorer

No problemo.

Trump wants to expedite them back.

16 posted on 03/25/2016 9:56:28 AM PDT by FreeReign
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To: Kaslin

Quote from the LA SLimes 2014 story about this very lie.

The vast majority of those border crossers would not have been treated as formal deportations under most previous administrations. If all removals were tallied, the total sent back to Mexico each year would have been far higher under those previous administrations than it is now

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-deportations-20140402-story.html


17 posted on 03/25/2016 9:57:17 AM PDT by Cyman
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To: WMarshal

Housing would surely get cheaper for the average working American.


18 posted on 03/25/2016 10:00:07 AM PDT by Califreak (Madeleine Albright says I'm going to hell. Cruz' dad called me an infidel. Long live the Uniparty!)
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To: Kaslin

To quote Colonel Potter, “Horse Hockey!”


19 posted on 03/25/2016 10:01:19 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Califreak

And neighborhoods safer.


20 posted on 03/25/2016 10:01:25 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("The Second Amendment is more important than Islam. Buy ammo.")
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