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If there is one word that stirs the blood of many people, that word is “illegals”.
We have seen on television what is painted as hordes of people supposedly headed for our southern border. We have been told they are coming here to sponge off American taxpayers, to live off the government, to live for free in the USA.
We are told that these people are murderers, rapists, thieves, felons and anarchists. Only the worst are being sent to the United States.
But what is the truth?
Well, about 1,200,000 American citizens are serving time in state and federal prisons in the United States for crimes of homicide, sexual assault, robbery or assault. These convicts are not illegals and mostly not Hispanic people. Rather they are white and black American citizens. Now compare this to the 25,000 actual immigrants ICE has removed from the country claiming these same offenses.
The problem is that ICE has removed another 443,000 people who are not guilty of any offense whatsoever, except maybe a minor traffic stop. These are tax-paying people with responsible jobs and families. Sexual assault, rape, and homicide show up in almost none of the cases.
This is from ICE’s own data through mid-2026. The administration in Washington would have you believe that the removals are for people convicted of serious crimes. Nothing could be further from the truth. You are being hood-winked. The bulk of removals aren’t people convicted of hurting or raping others.
What is further shocking is ICE’s own data that puts the cost at more than $18,000 for each person removed. It swings by case. Short removals to Mexico can run a few thousand dollars, while long flights or third-country deals can hit tens of thousands of dollars for each person deported. Self-deportation through the CBP app drops it to around five thousand dollars each. These are the figures that DHS and Homeland Security Secretary Mullin cited this year – covering arrest, detention, legal processing, and transport.
In addition to the cost of deportation which we taxpayers must pay, there is a much larger financial burden. Some sectors of our economy are hurt due to lost workers who cannot be replaced. About two million foreign-born working-age men have left since the start of Trump’s second term, and native-born workers have not stepped in to replace them at anything close to that scale. The overall labor force has actually shrunk by roughly one and a half million people, and participation is near multi-decade lows.
This shrinks the tax base and puts additional burden on the remaining workers.
Construction, agriculture, and hospitality are the clearest examples. Studies tracking ICE surges found employment fell for American-born workers as well – not just immigrants – because firms cut output instead of raising wages enough to attract replacements. Brookings estimated around six hundred sixty-eight thousand total jobs lost across affected cities, with tens of thousands of those held by U.S.-born people.
There are still millions of unemployed Americans, so the answer isn’t zero. But the data shows the gaps are real and concentrated where the deported workers were.
Of course, a country gets to decide who stays, and removing people who entered illegally or committed crimes is a legitimate exercise of sovereignty. The problem is the scale and the targeting.
Deporting people with serious convictions is broadly popular and defensible. But mass removals of long-settled workers with no criminal record, many of them parents of citizens, is where the logic breaks down. The truth is that you’re paying eighteen thousand a head to shrink the labor force and raise costs in the sectors that can least absorb it.
The policy of removing non-citizens makes sense as a principle, but not as a blunt instrument. The honest version would be narrow, crime-focused, and paired with a legal pathway for the people the economy actually needs.
Let’s be clear. Immigrants are not illegal. What is illegal is offering people from other countries a pathway to working in the U.S., then arresting these same people at a government required appointment to update their green card.
So why not fix the problem?
The answer is that immigration is a veto point, not a policy problem. Every attempt at a comprehensive bill since 1986 has died in Congress – the Senate passes something, the House kills it, or a president refuses to sign.
The reason is structural. Legalization is popular in polls, but enforcement is popular too, and the two blocs refuse to trade. Business wants cheap labor, labor unions want wage protection, and both parties use the issue to mobilize their base rather than solve it. A grand bargain requires someone to give up their leverage, and nobody in power has an incentive.
So we get executive orders, court fights, and piecemeal fixes instead of a law, which would be good for everyone.
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, former Shippensburg University Trustee, awarded numerous patents, as well as Founder and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. eLynxx provides cloud-software for automated sourcing and managing of mail marketing, swag, packaging, and all things print. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at Bill@eLynxx.com
