(NewsNation) — A mass deportation operation like the one former President Donald Trump has promised would cost about $88 billion annually, according to the American Immigration Council.
The total cost would reach about $967.9 billion over a decade. That’s a modest estimate based on the hypothetical deportation of 1 million people each year — in line with more conservative deportation proposals.
By the program’s end, the nation would lose 4.2% to 6.8% of its annual GDP — nearly as much or more than economic losses during the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009.
The nonprofit used data from the American Community Survey (ACS) and other publicly available resources to make its findings. They factored in costs including arrest, detention, processing and removal. The figure doesn’t include unknown hiring and ancillary costs.
Deportations under Trump never topped 350,00, but his campaign has hinted at a new strategy if he were to win the upcoming presidential election.
It would reportedly amount to one of the largest deportation programs in U.S. history, though details are unclear.
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump “would marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers.”
Such a program would require the United States to build and maintain 24 times Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s current detention capacity and more than 1,000 new immigration courtrooms, according to the American Immigration Council’s estimates.
It would also exacerbate the U.S. labor shortage. In 2022, about 90% of undocumented immigrants were old enough to work, compared to 61.3% of the U.S.-born population aged 16-64.
The loss of labor would hit some industries harder than others. The construction and agriculture industries would lose at least one in eight workers or 30% of workers in major construction trades.
Undocumented immigrant entrepreneurs also generated $27.1 billion in 2022. That means mass deportation would likely cost some Americans their jobs and disrupt services that have become integral parts of communities, the nonprofit said. The hypothetical operation would also eliminate about $22.6 billion undocumented households pay to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Medicare.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
