- Capital Flow Watch - http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch -

Deporting Illegal Immigrants: Are We Nuts?

Posted By John Schroy On 10th April 2006 @ 12:53 In Demographics | 7 Comments

No one knows for sure the facts on illegal immigrants living in the United States.

Nevertheless, lets start with one common estimate of the illegal population: 12 million persons.

Now, some have suggested that the U.S. deport these twelve million people, sending them back to their land of birth.

Lets assume that illegal immigrants will not pay any of the costs of this mass deportation, which would fall upon U.S. taxpayers.

What would be the economic consequences of mass deportation of 12 million illegal immigrants?

Making Some Assumptions

Lets guess that the average annual earnings of an illegal immigrant is $12,000. That suggests that total annual earnings of the illegal population might be about $144 billion.

This amounts to about 1.4% of total household income in the U.S. in 2006. So the first cost of deporting 12 million people would be a reduction in the Gross Domestic Product, which would have a negative impact on almost everyone who works for a living in the private sector.

Although, many claim that illegal immigrants don’t ‘pay their fair share’ of taxes, the fact is that they have to eat and buy clothes and live somewhere and therefore they do indeed pay sales taxes and, indirectly or indirectly, property taxes on the places they stay. As far as income taxes go, they are not much different than the large segment of the legal population who pay no income taxes at all.

Moreover, many illegal immigrants are working with fake social security numbers and working at places that discount social security taxes, from which they will never benefit.

Anyway, we might assume that without the contribution of illegal immigrants, tax receipts at state and federal level would be at least $5 billion less.

The Practicality of Mass Deportation

Lets say, however, that American voters do conclude that its worth the decline in GDP, sales taxes, and property values to ‘cleanse’ America of these people, and that ‘we the people’ decide to adopt a ‘final solution’ for illegal immigrants: mass deportation.

What would this involve?

  • To send 12 million people abroad by 747 would require about 30,000 flights. Assuming an average cost of $1,000 per air ticket (St. Louis to Mexico City), the cost of this air transport would be about $12 billion.

  • To deport 12 million people by Greyhound bus would be cheaper, but would still require 240,000 bus loads, assuming everyone comes from Mexico, which they don’t.

  • If all deportees resisted and were sent to jail, this would require accommodations to hold more than five times the number of inmates currently housed in state and federal prisons, assuming that the prisons could also be outfitted to handle the influx of women and children. This would probably cost at least $12,000 per person per year to keep them in prison, or about $144 billion.

  • If the ACLU has anything to say about it, each of these 12 million deportees would have the right to counsel and a fair trail. This would require at least two or three million public defenders and a vast increase in the number of judges and court personnel.

  • Although the popular media doesn’t give this impression, a large number of illegal immigrants come from places that do not border on the U.S., like Brazil, Columbia, Argentina, Indonesia, and so forth. The cost of sending these people back home would be considerably more expensive and would be complicated by diplomatic problems.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that mass deportation couldn’t be done. In America, we can do anything we put our minds to.

It would take a high level of logistic planning, which as seen in Hurricane Katrina, doesn’t seem to be a strong point of the government sector.

In any event, my ball park estimate of the cost of deporting illegal immigrants would be somewhere north of $200 billion dollars — in the first year.

Are we nuts?

Tags: [1] illegal immigrants, [2] immigration, [3] population
Bookmark and share this article:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • [4] blinkbits
  • [5] BlinkList
  • [6] blogmarks
  • [7] co.mments
  • [8] connotea
  • [9] del.icio.us
  • [10] De.lirio.us
  • [11] digg
  • [12] Fark
  • [13] feedmelinks
  • [14] Furl
  • [15] LinkaGoGo
  • [16] Ma.gnolia
  • [17] NewsVine
  • [18] Netvouz
  • [19] RawSugar
  • [20] Reddit
  • [21] scuttle
  • [22] Shadows
  • [23] Simpy
  • [24] Smarking
  • [25] Spurl
  • [26] TailRank
  • [27] Wists
  • [28] YahooMyWeb

Article printed from Capital Flow Watch: http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch

URL to article: http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html

URLs in this post:
[1] illegal immigrants: http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/index.php?tag=illegal-immigrants
[2] immigration: http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/index.php?tag=immigration
[3] population: http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/index.php?tag=population
[4] Image: http://www.blinkbits.com/bookmarklets/save.php?v=1&source_url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/c
apital-flow-watch/deporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F&body=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[5] Image: http://www.blinklist.com/index.php?Action=Blink/addblink.php&Description=&Url=http://capital
-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&Title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[6] Image: http://blogmarks.net/my/new.php?mini=1&simple=1&url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital
-flow-watch/deporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[7] Image: http://co.mments.com/track?url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-illegal
-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[8] Image: http://www.connotea.org/addpopup?continue=confirm&uri=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-f
low-watch/deporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[9] Image: http://del.icio.us/post?url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-illegal-im
migrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[10] Image: http://de.lirio.us/rubric/post?uri=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-ill
egal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html;title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F;when_done=go_back
[11] Image: http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting
-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[12] Image: http://cgi.fark.com/cgi/fark/edit.pl?new_url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/dep
orting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&new_comment=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F&new_comment=http%3A%2F%2Fcapital-flow-analysis.com%2Fcapital-flow-watch&linktype=Misc
[13] Image: http://feedmelinks.com/categorize?from=toolbar&op=submit&url=http://capital-flow-analysis.co
m/capital-flow-watch/deporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&name=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[14] Image: http://www.furl.net/storeIt.jsp?u=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-ille
gal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&t=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[15] Image: http://www.linkagogo.com/go/AddNoPopup?url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/depor
ting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[16] Image: http://ma.gnolia.com/beta/bookmarklet/add?url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/de
porting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F&description=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[17] Image: http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/seed&save?u=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/d
eporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&h=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[18] Image: http://www.netvouz.com/action/submitBookmark?url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch
/deporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F&description=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[19] Image: http://www.rawsugar.com/tagger/?turl=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-i
llegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&tttl=TITTLE
[20] Image: http://reddit.com/submit?url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-illegal-i
mmigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[21] Image: http://www.scuttle.org/bookmarks.php/maxpower?action=add&address=http://capital-flow-analysis.co
m/capital-flow-watch/deporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F&description=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[22] Image: http://www.shadows.com/features/tcr.htm?url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/depo
rting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[23] Image: http://www.simpy.com/simpy/LinkAdd.do?href=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/depor
ting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[24] Image: http://smarking.com/editbookmark/?url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-
illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&description=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[25] Image: http://www.spurl.net/spurl.php?url=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-ill
egal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[26] Image: http://tailrank.com/share/?text=&link_href=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/d
eporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[27] Image: http://wists.com/r.php?c=&r=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow-watch/deporting-illega
l-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&title=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F
[28] Image: http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?u=http://capital-flow-analysis.com/capital-flow
-watch/deporting-illegal-immigrants-are-we-nuts.html&=Deporting+Illegal+Immigrants%3A+Are+We+Nuts%3F

Click here to print.