The federal agency in charge of deportations has spent over $100 million ferrying undocumented immigrant minors around the US in the last few years. This is according to calculations by a watchdog group, which says this money should have been spent on enforcing immigration laws.
The Immigration Reform Law Institute obtained government figures via an open records request. It revealed that an average of $665 was spent per minor in 2014, by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The majority of that figure was taken up by the cost of airline flights to take the juveniles to American relatives, back to their home nations if ordered to be deported, or between government agencies. The statistics suggest that ICE has spent up to $4.5 million on transportation for the minors apprehended at the US border since October 2016, and over $100 million since the influx began to step up pace, in 2014.
The executive director of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, Dale Wilcox, described the situation as being a massive case of ‘insult to injury’. He blamed the 2012 deferred action scheme, deployed by President Barack Obama via executive order, for enticing tens of thousands of new immigrants, especially minors, to risk making the trip to the US.
Senate Homeland Security Committee statistics also show that only three percent of the over 120,000 undocumented immigrant minors apprehended in the last few years have been returned to their home nations, as of June 2016.