Weblog
Sunday, 21 December 2008
-
The Economics of Immigration Enforcement
Assessing the costs and benefits of mass deportation
Summary -- In July 2005, the Center for American Progress published a report assessing the costs of arresting, detaining, prosecuting, and deporting illegal aliens. The study, Deporting the Undocumented: A Cost Assessment, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion over five years or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period. The following paper reviews the data on mass deportation. In reassessing the cost, the following analysis compares and contrasts what an amnesty would cost taxpayers in terms of social services, lost wages, health care subsidies, and educational expenditures. The author concludes that comparative estimates demonstrate “no matter how high the costs of deporting illegal aliens may seem, the costs of not deporting them are larger still.”
Read more about immigration issues at NPI.


