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.
California might once again look like part of America.
The overcrowding. The bars on the windows. The graffiti. The surly gangs infesting once pleasant California suburbs would all be gone.
Obama Country could return to being Reagan County.
when all the illegal migrants were gone, America would find itself reeling from a self-inflicted economic wound.
School Teachers and Slumlords hit hardest.
“That is pure stupidity. This writer belongs in a zoo.”
Well he’s part of the Salem Media octopus, pushing their open borders, mass immigration line.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html
How Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico
Jeff must have some Mexicans mowing his lawn.
The place to stop this tide is first, at the border. Then, at the root. So it takes a strong president to go to the foreign sponsors of this invasion and tell them in no uncertain terms that THEIR people are THEIR responsibility, not ours.
Anyone seen a strong president lately?
Interesting article. And yet, this headline: “DHS: ‘No Intention of Deporting’ Most Illegals. based on a recent appearance by the head of DHS.
What are we to make of all this?
Illegal immigration would become a lot less attractive if heavy fines were imposed on businesses that knowingly employed illegal aliens, or failed to exercise reasonable diligence in identifying employees as such. The money from the fines could go to offset the cost of enforcement, or to reimburse facilities that are stuck providing welfare services for these criminals.
They changed the meaning of deportation. Thus is BS.
Jacoby used to be some what normal, even though he worked/works at the Boston Glob.
Utter BS. We get our house in order, enforce and rationalize legal immigration processes (they are a mess), and millions will come here from everywhere.
As it is, there are no consequences for breaking immigration laws, and they are about impossible to comply with unless you have lots of money.
Deport the illegals. Rationalize the process. Welcome the law abiding immigrants. Wouldn’t take that long. And our economy would get a HUGE boost.
PS Demscum and GOPe, we are not against immigration. We are against illegal immigration by millions of scofflaws who then abuse our system and our people! DUH!
You nailed it!
What a load of Bovine Excrement.The U.S. Would be in a safer,As well as finantially stable position if we were’nt careing for 30 million illegal aliens.Plus the additional 200,000 Muslims coming here from the third world crap holes.
Thing about the fewer dollars we’d have to spend tracking them to prevent possible terror attacks.
This country needs a Moritorium on Legal and illegal immigration.Untill we can get these illegals out of the country our society will continue on a very unstable pathway down the big sewer.
This is an oversimplification. It could be said that putting criminals in prison leaves the country poorer.
They have gotten at times a number for taxes to claim the child tax credits many times over.
In the city of Santa Ana, CA they had many filing false tax returns for tens of thousands of dollars.
No prosecution of the law was taken on this matter.
I have a simple solution to the cost factor. Let’s put a million dollar bounty on each illegal. 30 million illegals = $30 million bucks to capture and depart. Money well spent.
Cut off the Dole to AL who are not citizens or to minors whose parents are not citizens and the high cost of living here will make them self deport.
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