The Prohibitive Cost of Armed Federal Deportations

The U.S. was the first country in world history to be founded on skepticism about politicians. Implied in openness to foreigners who shared the origin view was a belief that people weren’t poor as much as the politicians they labored under limited their ability to prosper. In a free country defined by limits on political power, they would cure their poverty. They did, and they still do.

Evidence supporting this claim can be found in the happy fact that the world’s poorest continue to risk their lives to reach the most wealth unequal country on the earth. The U.S.’s existence as a magnet for the world’s poorest is the biggest middle finger of all to a global left wing that says inequality hurts the poor.

Too bad the modern American right is stepping on what mocks left-wing thought. It does so through its ravenous support for federal agents who enter private places of work with guns, only to arrest the illegals hired by private businesses to frequently do exhausting work.

The justification used by conservatives is their alleged reverence for the “rule of law,” reverence that goes out the window when their president takes the U.S. to war without congressional approval, along with their belief that so-called “open borders” can’t co-exist with a welfare state.

What these same conservatives can never explain is why, assuming the illegals are coming for welfare that it’s not legal for them to attain in the first place, the federal agents out to arrest them consistently go to places of work to find them. When asked they ignore the question, then revert to Milton Friedman’s worn out line about welfare states, reverence for rule of law, culture, “you’re a bleeding heart,” or all four.

In which case it’s best, at least for the purposes of debate (?), to accept the abjectly false notion that welfare is available to all those who cross U.S. borders. If so, conservatives don’t want their taxes to support welfare-taking illegals, thus their disdain for immigration.

Sure, but deportation isn’t free. When the federal government purchases planes to fly people to hellholes like Liberia, Congo, South Sudan, and Haiti, the cost can be measured in the tens of millions. Furthermore, there’s a cost associated with arming and training ICE agents to enter private businesses to handcuff these immigrants that measure in the tens of billions, plus there’s an exponentially bigger cost associated with detaining these individuals before they’re sent to hellholes around the world.

Which is just a reminder that big, armed government costs a lot of money too. If you’re doubtful, just look up the federal funding for ICE. After that, consider tax collections.

While immigrants (legal or illegal) are not legally allowed to receive welfare, they’re certainly allowed to pay taxes. But if they’re not working either because they’re afraid of being arrested, detained in U.S.-based prisons built by the federal government at substantial cost, or detained in the most backward countries on earth thanks to tens of millions spent by the federal government to send them to countries "run" by murderous gangs, they can’t pay taxes. It’s something to think about.

If it’s true that so-called “open borders” aren’t consistent with a welfare state, then it’s much truer that abundant prosperity isn’t consistent with ambitious people not taking their talents to where the prosperity is. It’s worth adding that there’s nothing consistent with the United States sending desperate people to their death or death while living (think Congo, South Sudan, Liberia, and Haiti), but it seems life is something “pro-life conservatives” only situationally care about.

Originally published on Real Clear Markets.