I've sort of stayed away from this topic, at least from posting about it, but the last statement in this article infuriated me. Talk about testicleitus elephantitus, jeez.
I tried to post a link, but while it works in preview, it does not work in the final version. You'll just have to trust me....
Cost to Remove 12M Illegal Immigrants Huge By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer
47 minutes ago
As Congress debates immigration reforms, some experts say the most extreme proposal â deporting millions of illegal immigrants â would be a huge legal and logistical morass, and ruinously expensive, too.
Officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which would be responsible for deportations, said they have no projections on what it would take to rid the United States of an estimated 12 million people.
But the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, has put the cost at $215 billion over five years.
The study assumed that a crackdown would prompt a quarter of the nation's illegal immigrants to leave voluntarily, leaving 9 million men, women and children to deport.
"I think a lot of people are making emotional calls on this issue without thinking through the cost to taxpayers," said study author Rajeev Goyle, a lecturer at Wichita State University. "It would be an unbearable cost that would bankrupt the treasury. It would cost more annually than the entire budget of the Department of Homeland Security, twice that of the annual cost of the war in Iraq."
Finding and catching people would be the most expensive part, about $158 billion, Goyle said. The study calculated it would cost an additional $34 billion to detain them, $3 billion for extra beds, $11 billion for legal processing and $9 billion to put them on buses or airplanes.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., author of a get-tough immigration bill, said the government has no intention of trying to deport 12 million people.
"Nobody is seriously proposing that, because that will require a massive infiltration of law enforcement officials and will disrupt the economy," said Sensenbrenner told CBS' "Face the Nation" this week.
But his bill and several others would make living in the United States illegally a felony. And felons without legal immigration status are subject to deportation.
In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security deported about 200,000 people; an additional 1,035,000 returned to their countries of origin when caught by federal authorities, according to the Office of Immigration Statistics.
Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates limits on immigration, said he does not believe a mass deportation "has ever been seriously suggested. It's the straw man that proponents of amnesty set out there so they can set it on fire."
FAIR's projection is that if current laws protecting the borders and penalizing employers who hire illegal workers are enforced, many illegal immigrants will leave the country.
"Once we get their numbers down, cut in half say, or three quarters, what you do with those that remain, that's something we can figure out," he said. "It becomes a more manageable problem. Three million is obviously better than 12 million."
Mehlman said military bases could be converted to detention centers, buses and airplanes could be arranged to take people back to the country of their birth, and legal processes could be streamlined.
Peter Schey, president and executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law Foundation, said it would be "absolutely absurd, impossible" to protect the legal rights of millions of people facing deportation.
"Unless you want to schedule deportation hearings 20 or 30 years into the future, there's no way it could be done," he said.
Carlos Portillo, who owns La Fuente Restaurant, one of the most popular restaurants in Tucson, Ariz., said the sudden loss of workers from mass deportations would be economically devastating for this country.
"Right now everything that's happening in the United States, the restaurant and hospitality industry, all the housing and building construction, all the farming, this is being done mainly by illegal immigrants," he said. "This country needs these illegal workers more than the illegal workers need this country."
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions or Comments
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I tried to post a link, but while it works in preview, it does not work in the final version. You'll just have to trust me....
Cost to Remove 12M Illegal Immigrants Huge By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer
47 minutes ago
As Congress debates immigration reforms, some experts say the most extreme proposal â deporting millions of illegal immigrants â would be a huge legal and logistical morass, and ruinously expensive, too.
Officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which would be responsible for deportations, said they have no projections on what it would take to rid the United States of an estimated 12 million people.
But the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, has put the cost at $215 billion over five years.
The study assumed that a crackdown would prompt a quarter of the nation's illegal immigrants to leave voluntarily, leaving 9 million men, women and children to deport.
"I think a lot of people are making emotional calls on this issue without thinking through the cost to taxpayers," said study author Rajeev Goyle, a lecturer at Wichita State University. "It would be an unbearable cost that would bankrupt the treasury. It would cost more annually than the entire budget of the Department of Homeland Security, twice that of the annual cost of the war in Iraq."
Finding and catching people would be the most expensive part, about $158 billion, Goyle said. The study calculated it would cost an additional $34 billion to detain them, $3 billion for extra beds, $11 billion for legal processing and $9 billion to put them on buses or airplanes.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., author of a get-tough immigration bill, said the government has no intention of trying to deport 12 million people.
"Nobody is seriously proposing that, because that will require a massive infiltration of law enforcement officials and will disrupt the economy," said Sensenbrenner told CBS' "Face the Nation" this week.
But his bill and several others would make living in the United States illegally a felony. And felons without legal immigration status are subject to deportation.
In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security deported about 200,000 people; an additional 1,035,000 returned to their countries of origin when caught by federal authorities, according to the Office of Immigration Statistics.
Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates limits on immigration, said he does not believe a mass deportation "has ever been seriously suggested. It's the straw man that proponents of amnesty set out there so they can set it on fire."
FAIR's projection is that if current laws protecting the borders and penalizing employers who hire illegal workers are enforced, many illegal immigrants will leave the country.
"Once we get their numbers down, cut in half say, or three quarters, what you do with those that remain, that's something we can figure out," he said. "It becomes a more manageable problem. Three million is obviously better than 12 million."
Mehlman said military bases could be converted to detention centers, buses and airplanes could be arranged to take people back to the country of their birth, and legal processes could be streamlined.
Peter Schey, president and executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law Foundation, said it would be "absolutely absurd, impossible" to protect the legal rights of millions of people facing deportation.
"Unless you want to schedule deportation hearings 20 or 30 years into the future, there's no way it could be done," he said.
Carlos Portillo, who owns La Fuente Restaurant, one of the most popular restaurants in Tucson, Ariz., said the sudden loss of workers from mass deportations would be economically devastating for this country.
"Right now everything that's happening in the United States, the restaurant and hospitality industry, all the housing and building construction, all the farming, this is being done mainly by illegal immigrants," he said. "This country needs these illegal workers more than the illegal workers need this country."
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Questions or Comments
Privacy Policy -Terms of Service - Copyright/IP Policy - Ad Feedback
-A