📝 The Real Cost of Deportation: Are We Safer, or Just Poorer?

A conversation with Miles Carter and Beth (ChatGPT)

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Teaser

President Trump promised to remove only the “worst of the worst” when it came to undocumented immigrants. But as enforcement expands, workers are swept up, taxpayers are lost, and the nation is left with a staggering bill. Are we really safer—or simply spending our way into economic decline?

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Main Conversation

Miles’ First Question

One of the things that our executive branch has run on is immigration and the damage they do to our country. In the bill, we’ve allocated a large sum of money to strengthen our borders and deport, hold, and process undocumented immigrants.

Now recently we’ve heard that the undocumented who work on farms and in the service industry are exempt from the purge. But when they campaigned—and during news conferences—they repeatedly stated that they were only sending back the worst of the worst: gang members with violent crime records.

Yet we have reports that they’re sending back people who have lived here for 20+ years and even own businesses.

We’ve written blogs about this before, but I’d like you to run down the promises and current status—sum it up so I know we have it right.

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Beth’s Initial Response

Absolutely. Here’s a structured breakdown of how the campaign rhetoric compares to the policy reality.

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🔍 From Promise to Contradiction

1. The Original Promise: “Only the Violent”

• Trump’s campaign focused on deporting violent criminals—gang members, felons, and known threats.
• This promise was used to justify a massive investment in immigration enforcement.

2. The Reality: $170 Billion Machine

• The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) allocates $170 billion over five years to:
  • Finish the border wall
  • Hire 10,000 ICE agents
  • Build detention centers
  • Fund deportation operations
• The estimated number of undocumented individuals with violent criminal records: ~10,000

$170B ÷ 10,000 = $17 million per offender removed

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Miles’ Follow-Up

So we’re spending $17 million per violent criminal?

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Beth’s Answer

Yes—if you assume the full budget is being used to remove only that group. In reality, the machinery is far larger than that narrow target.

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Miles’ Next Question

Okay, but that’s what we tell ourselves: that the wall is to keep them out, ICE is to find them, detention is to hold them—all for the 10,000 violent offenders. So based on that logic, are we really just building all this for them?

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Beth’s Response

If you take the administration at its word, yes. But the data shows deportations now include:

• Long-term residents
• Small business owners
• Parents
• Undocumented workers with no criminal history

That brings us to the pivot in the policy.

3. The Policy Shift: From “Just Criminals” to “Anyone”

• Reports confirm that people without any record, who have been in the U.S. for decades, are being deported.
• This includes contributors to the economy and community members.
• In response to pressure from farm and hotel industries, the administration proposed exempting workers in those sectors.

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Miles’ Next Question

So if we’re only targeting the violent, how many are repeat offenders? Is this really a recurring threat?

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Beth’s Data Check

There is little evidence that violent undocumented immigrants have high recidivism. In fact:

• Texas data (the most detailed available) shows violent crime rates among undocumented immigrants are less than half that of U.S.-born citizens.
• Estimated national violent crime rate among undocumented individuals: ~96.2 per 100,000
• U.S. citizen violent crime rate: ~213 per 100,000

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Miles’ Next Step

Let’s run the math. If there are 10,000 violent undocumented individuals and we spend $170B over five years, what’s the cost per year per person?

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Beth’s Answer

• $170B ÷ 5 years = $34B/year
• $34B ÷ 10,000 = $3.4 million per offender per year

That’s what we’re spending annually per person, if we really believe all this is only for those 10,000 violent individuals.

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Miles’ Follow-Up

Okay, now let’s compare. How much is the OBBB spending on stopping U.S. citizens who commit violent crimes?

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Beth’s Comparison

• Estimated 1.1 million violent crimes/year by U.S. citizens
• OBBB allocates only $3.33 billion total toward domestic violent crime enforcement (COPS, Byrne grants)

$3.33B ÷ 1.1M offenders = ~$3,027 per person

Category	Offenders	Spending	Cost per Person
Undocumented violent offenders	10,000	$170B	$17M
U.S. citizen violent offenders	1.1M	$3.33B	$3,027

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Miles’ Final Question

Alright, now let’s finish the loop. How much were undocumented immigrants costing us in services before Trump, and how much were they paying in taxes?

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Beth’s Fiscal Breakdown

• Undocumented immigrants pay ~$96.7B/year in taxes:
  • $55.8B federal
  • $33.9B state/local
  • $12B to Social Security (which they can’t collect)
• Costs of services (estimated):
  • Healthcare (Medicaid/emergency use): ~$7–16B/year
  • Education for children: ~$68B/year

But even including services, many estimates show a net positive fiscal impact due to their tax contributions.

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📉 Total 5-Year Impact of Mass Deportation

Category	Amount
OBBB enforcement	$170 billion
Lost tax revenue	$483.5 billion
Total cost	$653.5B

If the plan is to deport 10 million undocumented people, that’s $65,350 per person—and it doesn’t include the social or economic loss of removing active contributors from the workforce.

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Beth’s Final Summary

The Trump administration’s immigration strategy began with a clear public message: remove the violent offenders. But the enforcement system it built sweeps up far more—and costs far more—than that goal justifies. At $17 million per deported violent offender, and with nearly $100 billion per year lost in tax contributions, the policy may not be making America safer. It may just be making it poorer.

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