Why are Republicans saying they'll deport 15 million immigrants?

So although I personally am not going to render judgment on President-elect Donald Trump's second term until it's underway, people have been talking about his administration's plans to deport vast numbers of undocumented immigrants, and we should talk about it too.

Incoming Republican Senator Jim Banks of Indiana said on CNN last week that "there are at least 15 million illegals who have come into the country on Joe Biden's watch," and that we should deport every single one of them, starting with "violent criminals." Now, expert analyses put the total number of undocumented immigrants at only 11 to 13 million, and they certainly didn't all just come in since Biden took office. As a result, some folks heard "15 million" as code for plans to deport a few million actual U.S. citizens of Latin heritage as well. Personally, I think these guys just make up large figures that sound good. In June, Senator Marco Rubio was saying it was 20 or even 30 million.

Whatever the number, almost none are violent criminals. I think I said it a couple of weeks ago: Noncitizens here without permission are always trying to stay off the government's radar. If we had even 5 million violent criminals who were undocumented, that would be over 1 percent of the total U.S. population. One out of every 100 people in the country is not a violent criminal. There are not ~50 murderers, rapists, robbers, and thugs walking around West Acres mall in Fargo, North Dakota, on a busy day, at least not since they rebranded deLendrecie's as Herberger's.* The annual number of arrests in this country hung around 10 million for several years before covid. If a sizable chunk of undocumented immigrants were getting arrested for violent crimes, we would be able to see that. But they're not. (Most people getting arrested in the United States are white, because most people in the United States are white.)

So, a big question is: Why are we talking about deporting 15 million undocumented immigrants in the first place, when that number doesn't seem to be based in reality? Leaving that aside, another big question is: What would happen if we did it?

The first thing is that it would have an adverse effect on the U.S. economy. I don't think it's an understatement to say it would cripple it? Undocumented immigrants perform tons of labor at rock-bottom wages in vital sectors like agriculture and food production. There are not U.S. citizens or legal immigrants waiting in the wings to do those jobs, and even if there were, they would need to be paid more money. If you've got meat and fruit and vegetables in your kitchen and you purchased it from a regular American grocery chain, it's a safe bet that undocumented immigrants were involved in some shitty but necessary parts of that food's journey. Take them away and what do you think happens? If you can still get that food, it won't be cheaper, I can tell you that much. Undocumented immigrants also make up substantial parts of industries like construction and hospitality.

And then there's the cost of simply creating the deportation program, which this TikTok outlines:

"We have never in the history of our country deported more than 230,000 people in a year—ever," she says. And if you think that was a smooth process, you must be really confused by jokes about the DMV. Even just to deport a low figure of 10 million undocumented migrants over the course of four years would mean deporting over ten times as many as we ever have before. Building infrastructure and hiring employees to make it happen means billions of dollars in government spending. The overall economy also takes a hit because undocumented immigrants put more in than they take out, because they buy things and pay sales tax on it, but aren't included in big public programs like Social Security.

Some folks are saying that because of all this—which is so apparent that even I, a man recently accused of being the worst dad ever, am aware of it—it's not likely that President Donald will actually act on his deportation plans. His big business buddies would not allow it, these folks say. They might be right. But tomorrow I will say more about why he'd want to go through with them regardless.

*The 50 would be 1 percent of 5,000, which is how many parking spaces Wikipedia says West Acres has, although obviously this is very rough guesstimation, as number of cars does not correspond directly to number of shoppers, employees, and other visitors. You have cars that bring more than one person to the mall; you have tweens who get dropped off by parents who never park at all. You have the people who live under the mall, the so-called "mall-moles of Fargo," who venture to the surface from time to time to get an Orange Julius.

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