Posted on 09/12/2007 8:29:51 PM PDT by LouAvul
It would cost at least $94 billion to find, detain and remove all 12 million people believed to be staying illegally in the United States, the federal government estimated Wednesday.
Julie Myers, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gave the figure during a hearing before a Senate committee Wednesday.
She acknowledged it was based on "very rough calculations."
An ICE spokesman later said the $94 billion did not include the cost of finding illegal immigrants, nor court costs -- dollar amounts that are largely unknowable.
He said the amount was calculated by multiplying the estimated 12 million people by the average cost of detaining people for a day: $97. That was multiplied by the average length of detention: 32 days.
ICE officials also considered transportation costs, which average $1,000 per person.
But that amount can vary widely, the spokesman said. Some deportees are simply driven by bus across the border, while others must take charter planes to distant countries, he said.
Finally, the department looked at personnel costs, bringing the total to roughly $94 billion.
The statistic is likely to become one more piece of fodder in the heated debate between the Bush administration -- which has fought for a "path to citizenship" for people who have lived peaceably in the United States -- and those who want to see more aggressive enforcement of immigration laws, up to, and including, the deportation of all illegal immigrants.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Myers is using faulty logic.
As is being proven in State after State, if you begin to tighten the noose on the illegals with hard new laws, many of them will self deport.
That saves us tons of money.
Great Investment.
They cannot cut those benefits, why? Those illegals are keeping social security afloat and they are providing the supposed fiscal conservatives cheap labor. It is bait and switch right now and the amount of social security going out and continuing to rise, a source of NEW money is required in order to fund that scam.
Send the bill to Calderon.
Fine. Catch them and confiscate their assets to pay for deportation.
BTW: Once we demonstrate that we’re serious about deporting them, a lot (most?) illegals will deport themselves...
I like the way you think!!!
My “Modest Proposal de jure”.
1. Pay bounties on all illegals brought to the nearest police station.
It worked for bandits in the Old West. It can work for banditos all over America.
2. The bounties are paid from the assets of the illegals, with the government only picking up any remainder. Forfeiture could then be rightly used, for once.
3. No more bureaucrats would be necessary, as the general public would happily start turning ‘em in.
The IRS spends more than that keeping tabs on AMERICANS.
Fine employers, imprison some invaders, the rest will leave for free.
do not forget the cost of their cushy lives in our prisons as compared to home.
A Bargain!
Get that in writing, get it started ASAP and build the damned fence!
I also believe like the border fence most of the $100 billion of this cost is for paying lawyers on both sides to get this job done. But what the hell if we can spend billions in Iraq to fix up their infrastructure then we can spend billions here at home.
I like the way you think. lol
Former employers of illegals...doing the work we don't want illegals doing.
There's a nice long fence they could work on down south. ;^)
Bullshi'ite. Put a 1000 dollar bounty on every single one of them and watch how fast they self-deport. 30 million * 1K = 30 billion
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