$41 Billion?

"$41 Billion Cost [per year for five years] Projected To Remove Illegal Entrants" reads a Washington Post write-up of a press release by a liberal advocacy group. A friend responds:

What a farce. Actually the title of the study is the first joke "Deporting the Undocumented: A Cost Assessment". Sure, and rape is really just "unauthorized sex". Here is a summary and here is the study itself.

The study assumes that INS agents can only deport 10 illegals per year. Experience in Israel, Malaysia and the U.S. shows that immigration agents can bust at least one illegal a day. See for an article about how just 12 INS agents captured 450 illegals in a few days. Of course, Bush freaked out when the INS actually started doing its job and stopped them. Hey, wages might have gone up by a penny. Can't have that.

This is a crucial point because the study claims that apprehension accounts for 73.61% of the total cost of illegal removal. Using a more realistic 250 illegals per agent, per year, reduces the apprehension cost from $17,603 (the number in the "study") down to less than $1000 per deportation (actually $702.8). Of course, this results in an 70.67% reduction in the total cost of illegal expulsion.

If that weren't bad enough... The study also assumes that only 20% of the illegals would remove themselves faced with real law enforcement. Experience in the U.S. and other countries shows that at least 2/3 would get out rather than be arrested and deported. Providing incentives ("leave on your own with no penalty versus a lifetime ban if we have to do it" would be one approach) could raise this fraction materially.

Using a more realistic 66.7% voluntary exit rate yields another 58.34% cost reduction. Combining these two "minor adjustments" reduces that likely cost by 87.78%. What's being wrong by a factor of 10 among friends?

The authors also assume that mass deportation will have no effect on the number of illegals entering the U.S. Even they regard this as dubious but use this claim in their analysis. Their actual words:

"Although some of the future flow would likely subside if a massive deportation policy were adopted within the United States, this report assumes the demand at our border will remain unchanged over the five year period."

On a positive note, the claims that the future cost of enforcing the border is only $2.99 billion per year. Sounds cheap to me.

Overall, the study amounts to just another Open Borders screed and a bad one at that. To call the study "trite" would be an undeserved complement. The study repeats the long-refuted mantra about how cheap labor supposedly helps us all. Tell it to anyone who has actually lived in California for the last 30 years.

From my point of view, logically, the #1 priority, as usual, is: First, do no more harm.

It wouldn't be very sensible to try to round up massive numbers of current illegal immigrants while leaving the border largely open for their replacements. (Of course, we should be deporting right now criminal aliens, alcoholics, and the like.)

That means building a better fence along the Mexican border (by the way, we already have a fence along much of the border, but most of it is four feet high and can be gotten over or under rapidly by not very clever third-graders). What we need is an effective fence, like the Israelis have.

For those who get caught trying to sneak in, instead of just tossing them back over the border like we do now (or letting them go free in the U.S. if they are "other than Mexican"), we need to lock them up for 30 days for a first offense, six months for a second, and so forth.

Meanwhile, start applying pressure on employers. Make expensive examples of the most egregious, and start enforcing the 1996 laws on the rest.

Offer free one-way trips home, including shipping of all household goods, to anyone who turns himself in. Anyone who takes up the offer and gets caught back in America again would go to prison for five years.

Continuously up the pressure and a large fraction will self-deport. If that's not enough, then round 'em up.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer