Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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Xenophobia Has A Price
By Miguel Perez, as printed in The Indianapolis Star
August 2, 2005
For those who want to cleanse the United States of its 11 million illegal immigrants--those who want to send them packing back to their homelands as if this were an easy undertaking--there is a price tag for their xenophobic condition.
Their illness can be cured with at least $206 billion, and perhaps as much as $230 billion, over a five-year period. That's what a new study says it would cost to deport all illegal immigrants in the United States and to keep new ones from coming in. That's at least $41.2 billion annually, maybe more.
And to put that figure in the right perspective, the report, "Deporting the Undocumented: A Cost Assessment," notes that the cost of deporting all illegal immigrants would exceed the entire budget of the Department of Homeland Security for fiscal year 2006, which is $34.2 billion.
While most legislative proposals to fix the nation's broken immigration system provide some kind of legalization program for illegal immigrants, the report notes that "a number of people, including members of Congress, favor a more draconian solution to the problem," including a severe crackdown not only against those attempting to cross the border, but against illegal immigrants already living in the United States.
"Mere assertions by policymakers that deportation will be too expensive have been insufficient to quiet calls for such a policy," the report states, noting that its purpose is to provide a tool for evaluating our national priorities.
"This paper illustrates the false allure of deportation as a response to our broken immigration system," noted Rajeev Goyle, who wrote the report for the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan research and educational institute in Washington, D.C.
"Policy makers should address the issue of the undocumented seriously, not with unrealistic and costly ideas draining the treasury with no benefits to our security," Goyle added.
In this first-ever cost assessment of this always present, unrealistic idea, Goyle relied on data analysis by Dr. David Jaeger, an economics professor who broke down the expenses for deporting 10 million illegal immigrants into five categories: apprehension, detention, additional prison beds, legal processing and transportation. He also analyzed the additional border patrol expenses that would be required to shut down the borders. And the numbers are scary.
for full article:
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=mpe
By Miguel Perez, as printed in The Indianapolis Star
August 2, 2005
For those who want to cleanse the United States of its 11 million illegal immigrants--those who want to send them packing back to their homelands as if this were an easy undertaking--there is a price tag for their xenophobic condition.
Their illness can be cured with at least $206 billion, and perhaps as much as $230 billion, over a five-year period. That's what a new study says it would cost to deport all illegal immigrants in the United States and to keep new ones from coming in. That's at least $41.2 billion annually, maybe more.
And to put that figure in the right perspective, the report, "Deporting the Undocumented: A Cost Assessment," notes that the cost of deporting all illegal immigrants would exceed the entire budget of the Department of Homeland Security for fiscal year 2006, which is $34.2 billion.
While most legislative proposals to fix the nation's broken immigration system provide some kind of legalization program for illegal immigrants, the report notes that "a number of people, including members of Congress, favor a more draconian solution to the problem," including a severe crackdown not only against those attempting to cross the border, but against illegal immigrants already living in the United States.
"Mere assertions by policymakers that deportation will be too expensive have been insufficient to quiet calls for such a policy," the report states, noting that its purpose is to provide a tool for evaluating our national priorities.
"This paper illustrates the false allure of deportation as a response to our broken immigration system," noted Rajeev Goyle, who wrote the report for the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan research and educational institute in Washington, D.C.
"Policy makers should address the issue of the undocumented seriously, not with unrealistic and costly ideas draining the treasury with no benefits to our security," Goyle added.
In this first-ever cost assessment of this always present, unrealistic idea, Goyle relied on data analysis by Dr. David Jaeger, an economics professor who broke down the expenses for deporting 10 million illegal immigrants into five categories: apprehension, detention, additional prison beds, legal processing and transportation. He also analyzed the additional border patrol expenses that would be required to shut down the borders. And the numbers are scary.
for full article:
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=mpe
