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Republicans Demand Taxpayers Pay Billions for Mass Deportation Strategy

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Lamar Smith, Steve King, Elton GalleglyYesterday, the Immigration Subcommittee (of the House Judiciary Committee), which is led by notoriously anti-immigrant members of Congress — Lamar Smith (R-TX), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), and Steve King (R-IA) —  held their first immigration hearing since Republicans took control of the House.  

Titled “ICE Worksite Enforcement – Up to the Job?,”  the hearing is the first that unveils their immigration (or anti-taxpayer) agenda, more or less known as mass deportation. 

As the hearing revealed, carrying out this agenda would come at a staggering cost, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). On average, it would cost the American taxpayer $12,500 to deport each undocumented immigrant. If you do the math, this means that the government spent $5 billion last year to deport a record 393,000 immigrants. And contrary to Republican arguments that the Administration is too soft on the undocumented worker, deportation numbers show that an aggressive “enforcement-only” immigration policy that was established during the Bush Administration is still the status quo.