We mustn’t make the mistake of penalizing tens of millions of hard-working, tax-paying immigrants for the crimes of a relative few.
“It’s a mistake to base major policy decisions on a few hard cases.” It was an adage I heard often during my five years as an editor in Focus on the Family’s public policy division. (These days, Focus has scaled down—but not eliminated—its political involvement. But while I was there, in the early 2000s, Focus, with more than 1,400 employees, was a major player in conservative politics.)
At Focus, that adage about hard cases having undue influence on policies was aimed primarily at liberals’ tendency to cite rape-caused pregnancies or botched abortion deaths—both of which are rare—as reasons to keep abortion legal and easily accessible.
Trump and the Turned Tables
Now, the shoe is on the other foot and MAGA conservatives are seeking to base a major policy decision on a few hard cases. A key Trump promise throughout the recent presidential campaign was that he would order “the biggest mass deportation” in the nation’s history. The primary argument for doing so has been that we need to be rid of the “vicious killers, menacing rapists, and violent gangs” that have invaded our nation.
The hard case most often cited in this rush to rid the nation of these “vicious” immigrants is the vicious murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley. It was indeed a horrible, indefensible crime committed by a monster of a human being. But the monster—Venezuelan immigrant Jose Ibarra—is just one man who does not represent all undocumented immigrants. We mustn’t make the mistake of penalizing tens of millions of hard-working, tax-paying immigrants for the crimes of a relative few.
Statistics Versus Anecdotes
A recent study conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety found that “The offending rates of undocumented immigrants were consistently lower than both U.S.-born citizens and documented immigrants for assault, sexual assault, robbery, burglary, theft, and arson.”
On the other side of the ledger, “A 2023 CATO study found that first-generation immigrants contributed an average of $16,207 per capita to the economy in 2018 yet cost an average of just $11,361. This resulted in a net fiscal benefit of $4,846 per immigrant in 2012 dollars.”
Now, imagine the economic impact of deporting tens of millions of immigrants, each of whom contributes, on average, nearly $5,000 annually to the nation’s economy. If the new Trump administration succeeds in deporting ten million immigrants, each of whom would contribute $5,000 to the nation’s economy, that would result in the loss of 50 billion tax dollars annually.
Add to that loss the cost of rounding up and transporting all those immigrants, estimated to be about $88 billion annually. That means that American taxpayers will have to foot the $138 billion loss each year.
But that still won’t account for the financial hit the nation will take because of MAGA’s misplaced ire toward immigrants. The same study that found the statistics cited above also concluded the following:
A one-time operation to deport these immigrants would cost at least $315 billion, broken down as follows:
The government would have to spend $89.3 billion to conduct sufficient arrests.
The government would have to spend $167.8 billion to detain immigrants en masse.
The government would have to spend $34.1 billion on legal processing.
The government would have to spend $24.1 billion on removals.
So, add together the $315 billion for deportation and the $50 billion in lost tax revenue and we’re looking at a cost to the remaining taxpayers of about $365 billion—in one year! And that doesn’t take into account the inflated prices we’ll have to pay for food because of the loss of workers in the agricultural and food-processing sectors.
A Prescription for Nationwide Misery
And that’s just the economic impact of this knee-jerk reaction to a genuine-but-inflated concern about illegal immigration. Millions of immigrant family members—including young girls who daily faced criminals like Jose Ibarra—fled perilous situations hoping for a better life in America. The emotional losses they will endure will be incalculable. And all this will be because of a few hard cases.
Yes, we should mourn the tragic loss of Laken Riley and a few others like her. And the vicious criminals—immigrant or native-born—who hurt and kill our American neighbors should face harsh criminal penalties. But basing significant public policy decisions on these few hard cases will bring nationwide misery and solve nothing.
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