DHS says it costs $18,000 to deport an illegal. That's a crime, but worth every penny.

I saw a video a few weeks ago of Markwayne Mullin, the new DHS Secretary on Laura Ingraham’s show. He stated that it cost more than $18,000 per deportee to remove an illegal from the United States.  If you’re thinking that’s because we’re giving them swag bags and first class tickets home, you’d be wrong. At least that would be fast.  No, the $18,000 is what it costs to navigate an illegal through the justice system because of the labyrinth of laws and the hoops judicial activist “judges’ make the government jump through.

Mullins encourages us to imagine the cost of doing that to the twenty million illegals allowed in during the Biden administration.  That would be $360 billion!  And there would still be another 30 million illegals in the country.

All of this reminded me of a conversation I was having with a young person recently about the cost of illegals to the country.  In this case we were talking about housing.  I mentioned that one of the reasons that housing was so expensive is because there are 50 million illegals in the United States, and despite California’s insane Homeless Industrial Complex, most of them are not living on the streets, there or anywhere else.  They are living in homes. 

The population of the United States is approximately 350 million people, living in approximately 148 million housing units. That is an average of 2.4 people living in each house / apartment. Immigrants typically have a larger number of people living in their homes, according to Pew, 3.5.  Using that number, the 50 million illegal aliens in the United States live in 14 million homes / apartments. If those 50 million illegals were not here, the housing stock available for American citizens and other legal residents would increase by almost 10%.  To put that in perspective, on average the net number of new homes / apartments to hit the market each year is about 1.5 million. 

Needless to say, if an inventory of 14 million units was freed up over a 3-5 year period, the cost of housing across America would drop significantly.  There would of course, be consequences to that given that real estate is a key element of so many Americans’ net worth, particularly older individuals.  But it would be only one of the effects of removing 50 million illegals.

Others include education, healthcare, welfare and of course criminal justice and jobs. 

Let’s take education. Schools spend on average $16,500 per pupil educating their charges. There are approximately five million children of illegals living in the United States and going to school. Five million students times $16,500 equals $80 billion for education.  That number is actually conservative because the majority of illegals live in urban areas, where governments spend far more than average on schooling.

FAIR, the Foundation for American Immigration Reform, a relatively anti-illegal immigration organization estimates that the United States spent $41 billion in 2023 on healthcare for illegal aliens and their children. For some unknown reason that number is based on the laughably low 15 million illegals.  But we’ll keep it to give them the benefit of the doubt.

According to CIS, the Center for Immigration Studies, the average number of immigrant families receiving welfare is extraordinary. For perspective, 27% of the US born households receive some sort of welfare spending.  Among immigrants it’s… slightly higher.  Among Afghan families it’s 87%, Dominican Republic families 78%, Guatemala 77%, El Salvador 75%, Honduras 75%, Ecuador 70%, Mexico, 67%, etc.  As bad as these numbers are, in reality they understate the problem. Ostensibly illegal aliens are not supposed to receive benefits, but they do, and do so at higher rates than legal immigrant families, which are included in the above numbers.  As such, the above numbers are averages of both and therefore are lower than the percentages of illegal alien families on welfare. CIS estimates that taken together, illegal aliens cost American taxpayers $42 billion annually. 

Then there’s crime.  Not even thinking about the psychological and physical harm / damage violent crime does to victims, both individuals and businesses, illegals cost Americans tens of billions of dollars per year.  FAIR – again using their laughably low illegals numbers – estimates that at the federal level alone Americans spend $25 billion a year dealing with illegals in the justice system. Elsewhere they assert that states spend an additional $22 billion per year dealing with illegal aliens in their respective justice systems. 

All of that taken together, $80 billion for education, $41 billion for healthcare, $42 billion for welfare, $47 billion on justice equates to $210 billion per year spent on illegals by American taxpayers. 

All of the above are explicitly government expenditures. But there are also billions of dollars of additional NGO spending on illegals. Although no doubt with significant overlap as many NGOs are funded by the government. Then there are caveats, of course.  Some illegal aliens work and pay taxes, which would reduce that number.  Schools would be operating in most  places even if there were no illegal aliens, so that might reduce that number.  At the same time, most organizations and government agencies have a vested interest in keeping the reported number of illegals far below the actual number.  Plus, of course, the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars of additional housing costs Americans face because there are 50 million illegals competing for the same housing stock.

Assuming that we stick with just the $210 billion number and divide it by 50 million illegal aliens in America, that would work out to about $4,200 per illegal per year. Compared to Mullin’s $18,000 per illegal deported, it sounds like we would save money by letting them stay.  But we wouldn’t, of course. And we shouldn’t.  Given that April 15^th was just a few days ago, all of this resonates as one is sitting down to write the IRS a check.  And if we had to include in that the impact of illegals on the housing market and wages, it no doubt would be much bigger. 

But illegal immigration isn’t just about money.  It’s about right and wrong and whether Americans are in control of our country and whether our laws mean anything.  If we allow some groups to get away with breaking the law with impunity, (and getting subsidized once they arrive) what message does that send to the rest of the people in America, and more importantly, what message does it send to the rest of the world, particularly the 3^rd world where most illegals come from?

Mullins is right to point out the cost associated with sending illegal home because it’s always helpful for people to visualize where their tax dollars are going and how the out of control judicial system is making it worse.

But, at the end of the day illegal immigration is far bigger than just dollars. It’s justice. It’s safety. It’s right and wrong. And sadly, it’s control of Congress! As grifters like Maria Salazar try to pass amnesty by calling it “Dignity”, we shouldn’t let them. She and other Democrats in RINO clothing would replicate Reagan’s worst mistake, on steroids. Although far too high, that $18,000 is worth every single penny. 

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