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The Cost of a Border Wall vs. the Cost of Illegal Immigration

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rangerrebew:
 The Cost of a Border Wall vs. the Cost of Illegal Immigration

By Steven A. Camarota February 2017


Download a PDF of this Backgrounder.

Steven A. Camarota is the director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies.

The findings of this analysis show that if a border wall stopped a small fraction of the illegal immigrants who are expected to come in the next decade, the fiscal savings from having fewer illegal immigrants in the country would be sufficient to cover the costs of the wall. This analysis takes the likely education level of illegal border-crossers and applies fiscal estimates developed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) for immigrants by education level. NAS calculates the future fiscal balance immigrants create — taxes paid minus costs. NAS reports fiscal balances as "net present values", which places a lower value on future expenditures than on current expenditures.

Based on the NAS data, illegal border-crossers create an average fiscal burden of approximately $74,722 during their lifetimes, excluding any costs for their U.S.-born children. If a border wall stopped between 160,000 and 200,000 illegal crossers — 9 to 12 percent of those expected to successfully cross in the next decade — the fiscal savings would equal the $12 to $15 billion cost of the wall.1

Among the findings:

http://cis.org/The-Cost-of-a-Border-Wall-vs-the-Cost-of-Illegal-Immigration

Fishrrman:
Article blows out-of-the-water arguments that a border wall would be "too expensive".

It would be one of the best investments in America's fiscal future that could be made, if not THE single best one.

Build it, and:
Pay now, enjoy fiscal benefits far into the future.

Don't build it, and:
Continue to pay, pay, pay, pay, and PAY.

Drago:
Strict enforcement of "E-Verify" w/fines for employers, increased funding/staffing for ICE/Border Patrol, no welfare benefits for people w/o legit citizenship, beefing up of existing fence/wall at "problem areas", etc., etc. would slow the flow to a trickle also...at probably much less cost than an Israeli-type wall for hundreds or a thousand miles...the "property buyouts"/eminent domain costs alone are going to be rather large.

Oceander:
/snicker

A political fetish in search of a rationale. 

BigU:
No, it's a concrete solution to a real problem.

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