Sometimes, I think with my heart and project my motherly instincts and experiences in an effort to understand others. In the case of illegal immigrants, I have often thought, if I were a Mexican mother living in the deplorable poverty and enduring the crimes that, reportedly, occur in Mexico. If the opportunity came, I would cut and run to the USA with my family in tow. My sympathies were with them, as it was with many citizens of the USA.

Circumstance has greatly changed in the last few decades. We aren’t just taking in hard working souls who harvested the fields and took on menial work many of our citizens didn’t want. We are now dealing with unsupervised children and criminals, thousands upon thousands are flooding over the border. The estimates of how many range from 12 million to 30 million or more. A simple comparison of the cost to care for these immigrants, based on my household which runs on about $2600 a month for three grown people, would be (using just the lowest estimate of 12,000,000) $10,404,000,000 a month. Yes, just one month. If we use the higher estimate of 30,000,000 (that is equal to approximately 10 % of our current population) that would be $26,010,000,000 monthly.

In 2014 Kumar Kibble the Customs Enforcement Deputy Director addressed Congress. He gave a figure of $12,500 annually to run one individual through the detainment, legal course, health care, education and/or incarceration proceedings. That translates into $150, 000,000,000 annually for 12 million immigrants. Another estimate given by the Center for American Progress and Rob Paral & Assoc. gives us $23,480 annually per each individual. This cost is for Apprehension, Detention, Legal Processing and Transport. Using their annual estimate of $23,480 per the larger estimate of 30 million immigrants, this totals $704, 400,000,000. We usually only see the figures of what it would cost to deport these individuals which vary from a couple hundred billion to 400 hundred billion. Shocking figures and meant to be so.

The powers that be want the illegals to become legal and become a voting base. However, they have already won in a sense. Each and everyone of these illegal immigrants have to be counted, yes counted, as in a Census. Our Census isn’t just a method of knowing how many people we have. It’s a tool that is used in determining the number of representatives that are elected and sent to Washington D.C. to speak for their territory. States that are along the Mexican border have gained a higher representation based on the number of residents legal or illegal, documented or not, voters or not. So, whether these migrants become voters is not the battle. Those who constructed this crisis have already won a major victory.

Donald Trump’s plan for deportation may be more viable than some want us to believe. Three years ago the ‘Business Insider’ published an article on the cost of deportation. Their figure was 285 billion dollars for around 11 million. Maybe we need to look deeper into the pit and see that deporting them is a bargain compared to a annual cost of anywhere from $312 billion upwards to $704 billion annually. We would save much more than money, we would regain the equality of governing the people. There are others much more knowledgeable than I. Their insight has enlightened me and I hope will for anyone else who decides to spend a few precious minutes to read this.

Walter E. William’s an American economist, commentator, and academic. Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, as well as a syndicated columnist and author. This from his article “Destroying Your Vote”

  Hans von Spakovsky (Atty and former member of the FEC)

… points to the fact that 12 million illegal aliens, plus other aliens who are here legally but are not citizens and have no right to vote, distort representation in the House. Spakovsky cites studies by Leonard Steinhorn of American University, scholars at Texas A&M University and the Center for Immigration Studies. Steinhorn’s study lists 10 states that are each short one congressional seat that they would have had if apportionment were based on U.S. citizen population: Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. (See footnote: 5 Red and 3 Pink states lost representatives while only 2 Blue states did so.)

 On the other hand, states with large numbers of illegal aliens and other non-citizens have congressional seats they would not have had. They are: California (five seats), Florida (one seat), New York (one seat), Texas (two seats) and Washington state (one seat). Moreover, the inflated population count resulting from the inclusion of illegal immigrants and other non-citizens increases the number of votes some states get in the Electoral College system, affecting the actual process of electing the president of the United States.

“Where there is a will there is a way”, I have no idea who the original author may be, but I heard this many times from my Mother. Along with that, she would say “Can’t can’t do anything”. I am not totally on board with ‘The Donald’. Yet, I do believe he has a plan that can be worked with and made to clean up this mess perhaps ‘once and for all’.