Donald Trump is on a rather insurmountable mission to deport an ambitious (and perhaps fictitious) number of “criminal” undocumented immigrants. Either way, it’ll cost him a pretty penny—$3.2 billion worth, to be exact. According to the Department of Homeland Security, that’s how much it cost ICE to identify, arrest, detain and expel fugitives in 2016.
CNNMoney breaks down just how these funds are allocated, and from where it is procured. Here are five fast need-to-know facts about what it costs to deport undocumented immigrants:
1)
ICE handled some 240,000 of the roughly 450,000 total deportations that took place last year. Each deportation conducted by ICE cost taxpayers an average of $10,854 in fiscal 2016, an official from the agency told CNNMoney.
2)
In 2016, ICE spent $129.4 million to identify and apprehend what the agency refers to as immigration fugitives. According to TRAC, a database of information on the staffing, spending and enforcement activities of the federal government run by Syracuse University, about 15,000 arrests were made this way.
3)
In 2014, the average cost to hold one deportee in a federal detention center was $5,633, according to the Center for American Progress, a left leaning think tank.
4)
Last year, ICE spent an additional $345 million to accommodate “the surge in families with children crossing the U.S. southern border illegally,” according to the DHS. Estimated costs for the government’s legal proceedings vary from roughly $1,200 to $1,500 per case, according to research reports from the Center for American Progress and the American Action Forum.
5)
ICE said it cost an average of $1,978 in fiscal 2016 to transport each deportee to their home country.
Get the full scoop here.