Trump’s Wall May Pay for Itself

The debate over the cost of Donald Trump’s proposed border wall mostly has focused on whether he could make Mexico pay for it, but a LifeZette analysis of projected costs and benefits suggests it may well pay for itself over time — at least from a taxpayer’s perspective.

Trump has suggested he would use the USA PATRIOT Act to cut off a portion of the money that Mexican immigrants wire home each year — unless Mexico coughed up $5 billion to $10 billion to pay for construction of the wall. Remittances to Mexico totaled nearly $25 billion last year and exceeded tourism and oil sales as the largest sector of that country’s economy.

“A reduction of the illegal population would save on a whole host of costs … There’d clearly be a fiscal benefit.”

But regardless of whether or not Mexico plays ball, the benefits from reduced illegal immigration could save the United States enough money over a 25-year period to roughly equal low-end estimates of what the wall would cost. This is particularly true if the wall were coupled with other measures designed to reduce illegal immigration and reverse the incentives that attract undocumented migrants in the first place, according to experts.

“I can’t tell you there’d be a one-to-one ratio,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. “But the fact is, a reduction of the illegal population would save on a whole host of costs … There’d clearly be a fiscal benefit.”

Would it be enough to make the wall a net financial benefit? It is impossible to say with certainty, because there are too many unknown variables. Estimates of the cost of the wall vary wildly, and no one really knows how effective it would be in preventing illegal immigration.

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One thing that is pretty well-established, however, is that illegal immigrants — particularly those from Mexico and Central America — cost more in government services than they contribute in taxes. A study performed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform in 2011 and updated in 2013 estimated that illegal immigrants in the United States pay a little less than $9.5 billion a year in federal taxes and cost almost $28.8 billion in services and benefits. The study takes into account federal spending on education for the children of illegal immigrants, detention costs, and health care spending. It also considers welfare and other benefits paid to U.S.-born children in low-income households that include illegal immigrant parents.

That works out to a net negative of more than $19.3 billion — or roughly $1,488 per immigrant. So for every illegal immigrant stopped by the wall, the federal government theoretically would save almost $1,500.

Projections of Effectiveness Vary
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, estimated that about 300,000 people enter illegally from Mexico each year. That is based on the fact that apprehensions at the border number about 300,000 and the fact that border patrol agents estimate that one person makes it in for every one who is caught.

One clue about how effective a physical barrier can be is the 14 miles of double-layered — and in some spots triple-layered — fencing erected between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. Border crossings plummeted by as much as 95 percent after the fences went up more than a decade ago. It is impossible to know whether that 95 percent rate would be achieved if Trump walled the entire 1,000-mile span he is targeting.

When the government built the fences near San Diego, many border crossers responded by simply entering in a different spot. If it were not easy to find an open spot a little further east, perhaps more people would figure out a way under, over or through a wall. Others may try to enter another way, such as by applying for a travel visa.

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But Vaughan said she believes the number of new visa entries would be kept relatively small because the screening applied by U.S. customs officials and the cost of the visa, itself, would deter many low-income migrants.

According to an analysis of the latest census figures, the Center for Immigration Services estimates that about 1.1 million illegal immigrants moved to America in 2014 and 2015, or an average of about 550,000 a year. Experts believe only about half to 60 percent of those illegal immigrants crossed the Mexican border, however. A rising share of illegal immigrants in recent years come from people who enter legally on visas and fail to return after they expire.

If the wall succeeded in blocking 90 percent of the illegal immigrants current crossing the border, using the FAIR study as a baseline, the federal government might save $424 million a year, or $10.6 billion over 25 years. If the success rate were 75 percent, the net savings over 25 years would be about $8.37 billion. Both figures are in the range of Trump’s estimate to build the wall.

Most experts agree, however, that Trump underestimates the cost of building a wall. A detailed analysis last month by Bernstein Research estimated that a 1,000-foot long wall rising 40 feet off the ground would cost $240 million in cement and $711 million in concrete alone. The total cost, the firm estimated, would be $15 billion to $25 billion.

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Comprehensive Approach Urged
Chris Chmielenski, director of content and activism at NumbersUSA, said a comprehensive approach to immigration is needed. About half of illegal immigrants do not even come by way of Mexico, he said.

“A wall wouldn’t prevent that from happening,” he said.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the federal government should step up interior enforcement, implement a system to track visa holders and take measures like making the E-Verify system mandatory for business to make it harder for illegal immigration to get jobs.

“The fence is really not, in and of itself, a solution to the problem,” he said. “The most cost-effective thing we could do is cut off the incentives.”

Combined with those other measures, Mehlman said the wall “could be a net gain in terms of a public cost.”

It is not just theoretical, Mehlman said. Illegal immigration dipped several years ago as a result of more frequent raids at businesses employing illegal immigrants and the Great Recession, which eliminated jobs.

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“It really is irrelevant … why the job isn’t there,” he said. “A lot fewer came when they couldn’t get the jobs.”

Currently, about 250,000 illegal immigrants die or go home each year. If a comprehensive approach to immigration increased that exit by 100,000 people, that would save an additional $148.8 million a year that would bring the total cost of the wall well out of the red for taxpayers.

Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, pointed out the cost of Trump’s border plan could be reduced by switching from a large, concrete wall to double fencing. He said that is the preference of border agents, anyway, since it would allow them to survey what is going on beyond the barrier.

Krikorian added that higher expenditures on immigration enforcement would be worth it — even if it is not a net gain on the financial ledger.

“In a sense, I don’t really care,” he said. “Immigration control is a core function of government. It’s one of the reasons why government exists.”