Trump’s mass deportation plan would cost as much as 40,500 schools, 3 million homes or four times NASA’s budget

The economic impact of Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportation plan has been calculated, and the outlook is bleak. The plan would result in a drop in GDP, reduced employment, lower tax revenue, and a larger deficit — along with negative effects on key sectors like construction and agriculture. On top of these impacts is the direct cost of deporting around 11 million undocumented individuals, plus an additional 2.3 million who crossed the border between January 2023 and April 2024. The total bill for taxpayers would be staggering.

According to a new report from the American Immigration Council (AIC), the most realistic scenario estimates that $88 billion would be spent annually on deportations over the next decade — four times NASA’s budget and 18 times more than the global investment in cancer research each year.

According to the AIC, there are two ways to carry out the massive deportation plan. The first option — deporting everyone at once — comes with operational challenges and an initial cost of approximately $315 billion. This would amount to 37% of the U.S. annual defense budget. Key expenses would include $89 billion for arrests, $167.8 billion for detentions, $34.1 billion for judicial proceedings, and around $24.1 billion for expulsions. Added to this is the fact that Trump has promised to cut taxes.

The report also highlights that this estimate: ”does not take into account the long-term costs of a sustained mass deportation operation or the incalculable additional costs necessary to acquire the institutional capacity to remove over 13 million people in a short period of time.” The AIC estimates that between 220,000 and 400,000 new employees would be needed to support this effort, putting additional strain on the already tight labor market, and heightening the risk of inflation. For ICE alone, an extra 30,000 agents would be required, making it the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government. To put the scale in perspective, the U.S. prison system housed around 1.9 million people in 2022.

The second, more feasible scenario involves carrying out the deportations over 10 years. Even then, the total cost would be a staggering $968 billion, assuming an annual inflation rate of 2.5%. This would amount to $88 billion per year for arrests $7 billion), detentions ($66 billion), legal proceedings (12.6 billion), and expulsions ($2.1 billion). In this scenario, it’s estimated that 20% of those affected would leave voluntarily.

The AIC’s report highlights how the financial burden of such a large-scale operation would significantly strain the federal budget. To put the costs in context: $968 billion could fund NASA four times over or pay for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget twice. The NIH, which generates nearly $100 billion in economic activity, is a major public financial institution for biomedical research. The deportation costs would also be three times greater than the government’s child nutrition program budget, and exceed the total budget for the child tax credit.

Had the $968 billion been used elsewhere, it could have financed 40,500 new schools, built 2.9 million homes to address the housing crisis, or covered 79 years of funding for the Head Start program, which provides early childhood education. It could also fund the education of 8.9 million students at public universities or 4.3 million students at private institutions. For those without children or housing concerns, the funds could buy a new car for 20.4 million Americans.

The AIC’s report concludes that Trump’s mass deportation proposal is not only impractical but would also plunge the federal government into massive debt while eroding the taxpayer base.

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