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I am reminded of arguments against the death penalty that turn on how incredibly expensive it is to put someone to death (when one factors all the delays, legal proceedings, hearings and so forth). It is strange because these activists whether they are anti-death penalty or anti-deportation act like these costs are some essential part of the process when they’re obviously not. Executing someone could be done for pennies if we cleared the obstacles and proceeded as efficiently as possible and the same is nearly true of deportation (nearly, obviously deportation is somewhat more expensive inherently).
These things are always just issues of willpower as @IGI-111 said below. Clear the legal hurdles, brush aside defiant activists and NGOs and you’ll find our the process is not nearly so expensive and our capacity would be near limitless
It's actually pretty interesting you bring that up. Because I am anti capital punishment not for any moral reason (in fact if anything I think it makes plenty of sense) but for practical/pragmatic reasons instead. Why spend all this money over a fuss? Sometimes the opposition is just too entrenched that taking some sort of moral stand isn't worth it. And wanting to kill bad people instead of imprisoning them doesn't seem like such a massively important thing it's worth wasting "political capital" on. Like, even if I were to agree with saying immigration is bad and hurts the country (which I actually partially do) doing mass deportation is just too much of a political pain for not so much gain that it doesn't seem worth pursuing. Especially when decent-looking compromises show up with some regularity (e.g. Gang of Eight bill that almost made it, or even the less desirable but still OK bill that Trump tanked very recently).
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The justification for the high costs will be similarly analogous. For the death penalty, you want to execute as few innocent people as possible. In principle, no innocent people would ever be executed. In real world practice, a legal death penalties always puts innocent people do death in rare circumstances (governments are incompetent, Juries composed of Everymen, etc).
Likewise, the real world of deportations are far more complex than a simply wishing that the correct people are deported in the correct way. Laws are frequently squishy. A few million cases a year are clear, and people are quickly deported (roughly 10k per day). The others have to be argued. Removing barriers before understanding why they are there is an understandable impulse, but a dubious policy.
Granted, in both circumstances activists are incentivized to run up costs. That seems like more a feature than a bug. The US government is set up to protect people from the government.
I don't think that you have a right not to be deported. Being in the US for non citizens is at the absolute discretion of the USG.
Absolutely. Assuming you are not a citizen, you can be deported. Not germane to the point I'm trying to make.
I'm responding to OP's claim that its "obvious" deportations can be done much more rapidly and cheaply, making an analogy to the death penalty.
Im pointing to the system we have, the tradeoffs made, the reasons behind them, and the traditions created. I'm arguing that the costs are inherently high because of our Constitution, laws, and history. The USG is free to pursue mass deportations, but rarely has, and I find that telling. Oddly enough, the last few administrations to campaign on it don't do it, and those that campaign against it end up deporting even more people. Strange
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/#:~:text=The%20unauthorized%20immigrant%20population%20in,the%20most%20recent%20year%20available.
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This proves too much. Without any counterbalancing principle, like the government should also protect people from crime, activists would be justified in placing the standard for any conviction arbitrarily high.
There is the explicit principle of providing for the general welfare of citizens to counterbalance, but this has always been a justification of power. Perhaps I should have been clearer: the US was unique at the time for explicitly protecting people from the government. Fully half of the bill of rights is dedicated to - stated uncharitably - "protecting criminals". The whole system created new tradeoffs. There are no stongment to carry out easy solutions to problems. On the other hand, its harder for governmental caprice to crush people.
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