How does the cost of ICE detention compare to alternative immigration enforcement methods?

1. The raw math: detention versus community supervision

The most direct apples-to-apples comparison in government sources shows a stark gap: ICE’s detention average cost is reported at roughly $152 per day while the agency’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) Intensive Supervision Appearance Program is said to cost less than $4.20 per day per participant, a difference of more than thirtyfold ^[1]. Independent reporting that tracked average lengths of stay—about 44 days in detention as of September 2025—illustrates how quickly per-case detention costs compound, since the daily detention rate multiplies across multi-week stays ^[2].

2. Scale and budgetary choices that magnify cost differences

The issue is not merely a unit-cost one but a political and budgetary choice: recent federal legislation and appropriations have injected unprecedented sums into ICE’s detention capacity—figures cited range from an $11.25 billion annual increase to $45 billion over several years aimed at vastly expanding bed capacity—effectively underwriting plans to detain tens of thousands more people and expand private-contracted detention space ^{[3] [5] [4]}. Analysts note that this funding surge could double or more ICE capacity and that the bill’s detention line items are large relative to the budgets for the federal prison system, amplifying the fiscal tilt toward detention ^{[6] [5]}.

3. Broader dollar-per-deportation accounting and the hidden costs

When detention is folded into full “arrest-to-removal” cost models, taxpayers face much larger per-deportation figures: ICE’s own accounting has been cited indicating average costs of at least about $17,121 per deportation, while academic models have produced far higher ranges—one set of studies cited by reporting gives per-deportation costs spanning roughly $30,000 to more than $100,000, with detention and monitoring time as the biggest variable ^[7]. On a macro scale, advocates and researchers estimate that an extreme mass-deportation operation could cost tens of billions annually—one analysis put a one-million-per-year deportation scenario at up to $66 billion per year—underscoring how detention-driven strategies scale into enormous fiscal commitments ^[8].

4. Incentives, contracting, and accountability that affect real costs

Beyond unit prices, reporting flags structural reasons cheaper alternatives are underused: the new funding flows favor bed construction and contracting with for‑profit firms (nearly 90 percent of ICE detainees are held in privately run facilities), creating financial constituencies that benefit from high detention volumes and potentially discouraging investment in lower-cost ATD programs ^{[4] [3]}. Advocates and watchdogs warn that oversight has eroded even as detention expands, meaning non-financial costs—medical harm, legal barriers, and administrative failures—are less visible yet can add to downstream public expenditures and human costs ^{[9] [10]}.

5. Competing claims and the evidence gap on effectiveness

Proponents of expanded detention argue it’s necessary for public safety and to ensure compliance with immigration proceedings—a claim the administration has used to justify reallocating agents and funding—but the cited reporting notes that research does not show immigrants drive higher crime rates and that enforcement-driven reallocations have drawn resources away from other law‑enforcement priorities ^[3]. The sources here document clear unit‑cost advantages for alternatives and large budget increases for detention, but they do not provide a complete, randomized comparison of long-term compliance or removal-success rates between detention and various ATD models—so while the cost-per-day case for ATD is unambiguous in the available reporting, gaps remain about how different mixes of supervision versus detention perform across all enforcement metrics ^{[1] [2]}.