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Mass Deportations Would Leave America Poorer
Townhall.com ^ | March 25, 2016 | Jeff Jacoby

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.


TOPICS: Cheese, Moose, Sister
KEYWORDS: aliens; cultistsfortrump; deportation; growupalready; ice; immigration; stupidtopics; trumpistindenial
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To: Kaslin

I’m willing to give it a try.


41 posted on 03/25/2016 10:31:38 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (Who can actually defeat the Democrats in 2016? -- the most important thing about all candidates.)
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To: A CA Guy

By parents who are not citizens, I do hope you do not mean Green Card holding legal residents? As they are protected by law.


42 posted on 03/25/2016 10:40:44 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed theThe l ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
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To: glorgau

Adam Smith correctly defined emigration/immigration as a economic transaction whereby an individual leaves his nation for another nation; exchanging his labor which adds value in return for security. Sentiment has absolutely nothing to do it. Mexican labor adds absolutely no value in our hi-tech economy. In fact Mexico has two exports; street drugs and illiterate peasantry.


43 posted on 03/25/2016 10:43:51 AM PDT by Arrian (But)
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To: Kaslin

Nope, it would leave us far richer and far happier.


44 posted on 03/25/2016 11:01:31 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Kaslin

The green card holding residents are to maintain 125% above the poverty line to be here to begin with.
They are not supposed to get green cards and drop themselves on the taxpayer as dependents.

I was thinking about illegals, but since that was brought up, yeah that rule that allows residents to go on the Dole should be blocked and the users should be never allowed to become citizens.

Yes, if here for years I can see the temporary unemployment benefits for months, but that is about it.

If the family goes on EBT, WIC, welfare and such then pull the Dole from their reach IMO.


45 posted on 03/25/2016 11:08:49 AM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: Kaslin

I can deal with a tougher economy if I get to keep my country.


46 posted on 03/25/2016 11:09:49 AM PDT by Lazamataz (Islam is rabies. Anyone infected needs to be put down like a dog.)
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To: A CA Guy

Thanks, I was just making sure.


47 posted on 03/25/2016 11:13:16 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed theThe l ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
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To: Kaslin

I call bull malarkey on the “poorer” thing. The costs of social, education, multi-language and financial support for illegals is many, many times the cost of deportation.


48 posted on 03/25/2016 11:28:39 AM PDT by ataDude (Its like 1933, mixed with the Carter 70s, plus the books 1984 and Animal Farm, all at the same time.)
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To: Kaslin

The analysis is flawed because it presumes every single one of the immigrants will be fully processed through the system. Once the immigrants here illegally come to understand that they all ultimately be will arrested and will be deported, a significant number will choose to leave voluntarily.

How do you create that understanding?

Criminal sanctions against Americans who employ them.
Cut off of entitlements and benefits
Stop “catch and release” at the border

Yes, some cost still but not nearly as much as projected.

BTW, invest some money on the legal immigration pathway, so we can apply some quality control to the people we are letting in.


49 posted on 03/25/2016 11:28:47 AM PDT by Captain Rhino (Determined effort today forges tomorrow.)
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To: Kaslin; wardaddy; Lazamataz
This is more of the prevailing fallacy that you measure social benefits & detriments by applying macro economic data--i.e., an aggregation of all the micro economic dealings that actually affect the lives of actual people, communities, etc..

The hidden social costs--many not ever measured or measurable in monetary terms--are totally ignored in these calculations.

What is behind this idiocy are two prongs of an attack that is going to destroy American sovereign independence, unless arrested. One is the attack on the very concept of a nation, or ethnic identity; which largely results from the politically correct attack on American exceptionalism--of the unique character of unique peoples. The other is the perceived--but misunderstood--illusion of self interest by the captains of American business & finance.

We need to confront this attack with determination; with a will to save what is inherently ours. In that quest, consider:

Trump: Metaphor For American Conservatism.

In that quest, please drop the war on the personal lives of the candidates. That will only destroy the ability to work together among Conservative Americans. It is at best a dangerous distraction from the public issues.

50 posted on 03/25/2016 11:48:41 AM PDT by Ohioan
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To: Kaslin

I’d rather be “poorer” and have a rule of law. Multiculturalism is EXTREMELY overrated.


51 posted on 03/25/2016 12:00:36 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or eradication Camp?)
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To: Kaslin
Mass Deportations Would Leave America Poorer

BWAHAHAHAHA!!

52 posted on 03/25/2016 12:06:47 PM PDT by ConservingFreedom (Trump fans:'he's no more conservative than Mitt'-www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3389209/posts)
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To: ConservingFreedom

How stupid do gloBULList elite Free Traitors™ think we are?


53 posted on 03/25/2016 12:09:57 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va
I'm glad I let my subscription to NR lapse before I had to watch them fall into the arms of the Free Traitors.
54 posted on 03/25/2016 12:12:35 PM PDT by ConservingFreedom (Trump fans:'he's no more conservative than Mitt'-www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3389209/posts)
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To: Kaslin

We don’t have to spend a lot of money to rid ourselves of illegal immigrants.

First. Make it absolutely clear they will not receive ANY welfare benefit. No medical, no education, no housing, no food. Nothing.

Two. Make it so expensive and destructive to a business that the dare not hire illegal workers.

Three. Establish a fund to pay the expenses of an illegal immigrant moving back once they find out they can no longer get free stuff or a job.


55 posted on 03/25/2016 1:27:55 PM PDT by Organic Panic
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