The federal government has released some rough figures regarding the cost of removing 12 million illegal aliens from the country.
It would cost at least $94 billion to find, detain and remove all 12 million people believed to be staying illegally in the United States, the federal government estimated Wednesday.
Julie Myers, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), gave the figure during a hearing before a Senate committee Wednesday.
She acknowledged it was based on “very rough calculations.”
An ICE spokesman later said the $94 billion did not include the cost of finding illegal immigrants, nor court costs — dollar amounts that are largely unknowable.
He said the amount was calculated by multiplying the estimated 12 million people by the average cost of detaining people for a day: $97. That was multiplied by the average length of detention: 32 days. [source]
Using those numbers, it works out to about $7,833 to remove a single illegal alien. I have a few problems with this.
Detaining them for 32 days? No. Round Pablo up in the morning and put him on a bus in the afternoon he can be in Mexico within 24 hours in most cases. That can’t cost seven thousand dollars.
If the illegal alien is here from somewhere farther away, let him figure out how to get home. He was resourceful enough to figure out how to get here, he can be resourceful on the way back as well. And if all these people are so hard working, they should have enough money to buy a plane ticket home.
I think that rather than spending $7,833 dollars to round up an illegal alien, we should offer a bounty and let private contractors do the work. Let’s say $3,900 a head, which is about half of the government estimate. For the money, a private contractor would be responsible for identifying an illegal alien, taking them into custody, verifying that they are illegal, transporting them to the border. Once there, the Border Patrol can take Photos, Fingerprints, DNA… whatever. Then, as an agent walks them to the gate, explain to the illegal that if they show up in the U.S. again, they will be considered a terrorist and shot on sight.
With the other 47 Billion, we finish building that fence.
I know my plan sounds kind of cold, but I seem to remember being told about a thousand times that we are in the middle of a “war on terror”. If we can throw billions and billions into Iraq, we should be able to throw 94 Billion into taking care of our domestic problems.
