The Math of Immigration Detention, 2018 Update: Costs Continue to Multiply
Since the National Immigration Forum’s (“the Forum’s”) publication of The Math of Immigration Detention and the collapse of bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform in 2013, the federal government’s exorbitant spending on detaining hundreds of thousands of immigrants has continued to multiply. In that time, across presidential administrations, both the number of people held in immigration detention and the cost of detaining each one have increased.
Detention of non-dangerous immigrants is a budget item ripe for cost savings. Such savings can be achieved by deprioritizing the detention of immigrants without criminal records and moving those immigrants into alternatives to detention (ATD) programs. ATDs have proved to be effective, with immigrants appearing for their final hearings more than 95 percent of the time when participating in “full service” ATD programs that feature case management.
Benenson, L. (2018). he Math of Immigration Detention, 2018 Update: Costs Continue to Multiply. National Immigration Forum. Retrieved from https://immigrationforum.org/article/math-immigration-detention-2018-update-costs-continue-mulitply/