Congress is working to nail down funding for President Donald Trump’s promised immigration policies.
“We have to figure out ways to get funds, resources, to accomplish what those executive orders laid out,” Ohio representative Jim Jordan told Scripps News.
There are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Those millions could now face heightened immigration enforcement as President Trump works to fulfill his promise of mass deportations — a promise that could cost the government billions.
Michael Clemens, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the U.S. is already spending massive amounts on immigration.
“If you put together the budgets of all the other federal law enforcement agencies combined, the whole budget of the FBI, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Secret Service, everything combined isn't even a fraction of the amount that we have already been spending on immigration enforcement,” said Clemens. “It is a vast component of the U.S. budget, and it is clearly going to scale up by multiples.”
While the exact costs are still unclear, Rep. Jordan told Scripps News Trump’s border czar Tom Honan puts that number in the billions.
“I think Mr. Homan has indicated he needs about $80 billion for agents, for flights, for detention space, detention beds,” said Jordan. “All the things you need to do what we told the American people we’re going to do.”
The American Immigration Council puts that number a bit higher, estimating a longer-term deportation operation to cost $88 billion to deport 1 million people per year.
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A detailed list from the House Budget Committee published by the New York Times includes a host of options, like cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, eliminating credit for child or dependent care, and increasing certain tariffs on China.
For the potential impact Trump’s immigration policies could have on the average American, Clemens pointed to Secure Communities, a mass deportation program that began at the end of the Bush administration and was carried out during the Obama administration. The program is “estimated to have resulted in about half a million deportations,” according to Clemens.
“There's absolutely no reason to think that that's the fundamental economic effects of mass deportation under the Obama administration will be different from this time, except that they'll be magnified,” Clemens old Scripps News.
“So, Americans can expect fewer job opportunities, higher prices for a range of goods,” he continued. “They can expect less new home construction. They can expect higher rates of institutionalization for the elderly, and they can expect no change in the crime rate.”
In addition to funding, the president’s mass deportation operation may have to clear several other hurdles. Immigration and law experts say those could include legal challenges from civil rights groups, pushback from certain cities and local law enforcement, as well as concerns about economic instability.
