No one is going to deport 12 million illegals

A CNN story reports on the recent ICE estimate of the costs for detaining and deporting all 12 million illegal immigrants. The total cost $94 billion.

This adds to the existing moral and anecdotal reasons that a full-scale deportation of all illegals in the U.S. is impractical, if it were even possible. There is no way that the U.S. can afford to deport every illegal immigrant and, even if they could, we have still proven that we can't close the border.

The solution, then, isn't dealing with the individuals. The solution is dealing with why they come here. The issue is two-fold: the poor economy in foreign countries, high crime rates, poor education, and political corruption combine to give people scant job opportunities, and jobs in the U.S. are available to illegal immigrants.

If we want to end the problem of the massive sieve in our borders and want to end the problem of people living illegally within our country, we need to deal with these two issues. First, we need to implement core reforms which will prevent those who are illegal from working here. If you take away the jobs, they'll have no reason to come. This can be done by enhanced enforcement, larger fines for those found to be violating the laws, a centralized database which indicates is tied biometrically to an individual and holds information as to if an individual can legally work, and enforcing laws against tax evasion, identity theft, and filing fraudulent tax documents. Secondly, we need to work with the governments of Third World countries to enhance outlook in them by assisting with education, infrastructure, and economic development.

The problems will never be solved by rounding people up, splitting up families, and deporting individuals The only way to solve the problem is the address the issues which drive it.

ICE: Tab to remove illegal residents would approach $100 billion
CNN

WASHINGTON -- It would cost at least $94 billion to find, detail, and remove all 12 million people believe to be staying illegally in the United States, the federal government estimated Wednesday.

Julie Myers, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gave the figure during a hearing before a Senate committee Wednesday.

She acknowledged it was based on "very rough calculations."

An ICE spokesman later said the $94 billion did not include the cost of finding illegal immigrants, nor court costs -- dollar amounts that are largely unknowable.