I Think Axios Wanted Me to Be Mad About This – Each Deportation Costs $2358

Um…that’s it. That’s the story.

Seriously.

Axios got themselves a figure – it’s a big one – and then someone did some #mathz. I guess it looked like this:

$268.9 billion ÷ illegal aliens = $2,358 per pop

And some numbskull who doesn’t blink twice about buying a $12 Starbucks latte grande twice a day thought, ‘Holy CRAP! That’s a lot of money!‘

Trump deportations cost taxpayers $2,358 each https://t.co/QYYqTjGEki

— Axios (@axios) August 5, 2026

There is much WAAH! in the article concerning this expenditure, and how wasteful it seems when it could be spent on, oh…I don’t know.

FOR THE CHILDREN

Why it matters: The estimate fuels debate over whether billions of federal dollars devoted to deportations could instead fund other public priorities such as food assistance, health care or housing.

By the numbers: EPI estimates the $268.9 billion projected for deportations could alternatively fund more than 118 million additional SNAP recipients over the remaining 2.5 years of the Trump administration, based on National Priorities Project data.

• Alternatively, nearly 12 million additional people could receive Medicaid.
• Or more than 9.7 million households could gain access to low-cost public housing.

What they’re saying: “I don’t think people realize how much money is being spent on these mass deportations,” Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center and research associate at EPI, tells Axios.

My first reaction was, ‘Damn! What a bargain!’

It turns out to have been quite a few people’s initial take.

In the first place, why do we want to fund ‘118 million additional SNAP recipients’ if we don’t have to, as the ‘National Priorities Project’ seems to think we should? Now, who the heck are those guys in the first place?

Well, their website says they are dedicated to ‘Fighting for a U.S. federal budget that prioritizes peace, economic security and shared prosperity.’ How nice. But it also says they are a ‘project’ of the Institute for Policy Research, which happens to be one of the oldest progressive policy think tanks around, and is funded by the MacArthur and Rockefeller Foundations, among others. This parent organization – SURPRISE! – is also dedicated to the kumbaya cult. 

IPS is a progressive organization dedicated to building a more equitable, ecologically sustainable, and peaceful society

Naturally, Axios using them as the sole squishy source material for squandering the excessive sum of two and a half grand per deportation would leave out the few inconvenient, salient facts proving this is, indeed, one of the best deals the U.S. will ever make.

That’s what I’m here for.

First, what proportion of these illegal aliens contribute to or consume public resources?

By a majority, they are consumers.

Estimates of the expenditures to feed, house, and clothe them in the past five years are double what it will cost to remove them.

Maintaining the illegal population is an ongoing cost. Removing them is a one-time expenditure.

Oh, you idiots want to play this game? pic.twitter.com/AHPSeHCCaQ

— ScrollofTruth (@ScrollofTruthIF) August 6, 2026

In 2023 dollars, the lifetime cost of an illegal in the country was over $68,000. That’s undoubtedly more now in 2026 dollars.

Spending $2,358 to save $68,390 is a great ROI. pic.twitter.com/MBNskIvj0Y

— ExtantBuffalo (@ExtantBuffalo) August 6, 2026

In some blue states, thanks to their expansive sanctuary benefits system for illegals, the taxpayer savings would be even more impressive.

In Massachusetts, for instance, that turns into over $77,000 in the bank for every one fewer illegal alien.

I think you mean to say, each deportation saves taxpayers $77,000 pic.twitter.com/TuP8cX2tBg

— Fugitive Caesar (@ThomBrady5) August 6, 2026

A 2023 cost analysis would have California taxpayers almost five grand richer per deportation.

In 2018, California Governor Gavin Newsom publicly ordained California as a “sanctuary state”; meaning, California “promotes laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers”:

• Mass illegal immigration and misguided state policies that provide benefits and services to illegal aliens cost California’s shrinking tax base nearly $31 billion a year, according to a 2023 cost analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
• Among FAIR’s key findings:
  • Benefits and services provided to illegal aliens in California in 2022 amounted to $22,821,903,942.
  • California does not allocate funding toward border security, but total national policing expenditures amount to $8,952,291,000.
  • The total cost of $30,936,201,468 works out to a per capita cost of $7,074.

But, okay, Axios, who neglects that funding for housing and food is already not much of an issue for illegals, but it is for Americans.

Massachusetts is giving illegals up to $30,000 (!) over two years for seed money to ‘transition out of emergency shelters‘ into permanent housing. Nice, huh?

Just for giggles, what did you get from the state you live in to help with that first apartment or house?

In any event, it’s pretty clear this attempt at working up angst over a downright reasonable one-and-gone tab has kind of blown up in Axios’ face.

It’s always that dang math that gets them, particularly when they leave the rest of the equation off the page.

On the other hand, I’d like to thank them for showing us that this CAN be done efficiently and affordably. 

In hindsight, this article was darn near a public service announcement.

Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.

Help us hold these leftists accountable and expose their obstruction. Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.