“Deport one million of them. Lock up another million of them. The rest will get the hint!”
I’m not really interested in locking them up while we pay $50,000 per illegal per year to keep them confined. It’s cheaper to just send them back.
We can send them back. But lock ‘em up in the meantime because, admittedly, it takes a while to deport two million of them. And they’ll be more afraid of lockup then being sent back. Send them back and they’ll figure that they can sneak in again.