I’ve always found the notion that the U.S. can’t get 12 million illegal aliens to leave to be little more than a red herring. I don’t think the U.S. even has to build some monstrous 2000 mile long border wall either much less employ an army of border patrol and ICE agents to accomplish it either. Simply remove the incentives for people to illegally come and stay here and they’ll leave on their on volition. That means no public education for illegal aliens, no birth right citizenship, posting ICE agents at hospitals known to be frequented by illegal aliens, going after people and organizations that knowingly employ illegal aliens, withhold federal funding from “sanctuary cities”, etc. Supposedly a million of these people left during the “great recession.” I seem to remember there was all kinds of talk about how Arizona was “suffering” with crops dying in the field for lack of illegal labor to harvest it after the state instituted policies to discourage illegal aliens, presumably they were fleeing the state in droves.
In short these people managed to get themselves here, I’m sure given the proper motivation they can get themselves out as well.
You are exactly right, it has taken the lions share of our social security accounts to lure them here.