Attn Janet Napolitano: Once again, the so-called ‘extremists’ were right.
On December 3, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, Nelson Peacock, responding to request from several U.S. Senators, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), wrote: “Our conservative estimate suggests that ICE would require a budget of more than $135 billion to apprehend, detain and remove the nation’s entire illegal immigrant population.”
In July 2010, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released the results of a study which examined the costs of illegal immigration at the federal, state and local levels. The study found that U.S. state and local governments shell out $84.2 billion annually in various services (law enforcement, schools, social services, etc.), with California taxpayers alone, spending $21 billion on illegal aliens every year.
The same study found that $29 billion is spent every year in federal funds on illegal aliens.
So, while it would cost a one-time fee of about $135 billion to deport every single illegal alien in the country, it is actually a bargain considering the fact that it already costs us $113 billion annually to keep them here.
In other words, the mass deportation would pay for itself in a little over a year.
Incidentally, in 2007, the DHS estimated the cost of deporting all illegal aliens to be approximately $94 billion.