New EPI resource shows the cost of deportations in every U.S. state, county, and city

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has released the Cost of Deportations Calculator, a tool revealing how many federal tax dollars are being spent on removal operations in every U.S. state, county, and city. The calculator shows how that money could be spent on instead—such as school teachers, public housing, and health care.

According to the EPI,

"[t]he Trump administration and its allies in Congress have cut support for basic needs programs and diverted huge sums of money to deportations. The federal government plans to spend $268.9 billion—or $2,358 per taxpayer—to undertake mass deportations throughout the second Trump administration, according to the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. With the money being spent on mass deportations, the calculator shows that the U.S. could instead fund one of the following options for the remainder of Trump’s term:

• More than 925,000 school teachers
• Over 5 million veterans’ medical care
• Nearly 12 million people on Medicaid
• 9.7 million public housing units
• Paid parental leave for 6.2 million parents

At the state level, for example, $4.4 billion in federal taxpayer dollars is being spent on mass deportations in Minnesota, a prominent target of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown earlier this year. 

The Calculator shows that, instead of spending $39,839,461,853or $2,945 per taxpayer on mass deportations, California taxpayers could fund

104,814 School Teachers

OR

103,754 Firefighters

OR

1,803,437 People on Medicaid

OR

613,943 Veterans' Medical Care

OR

701,754 Head Start Slots

OR

71,671Registered Nurses.