How do per‑deportation cost estimates vary between DHS, Penn Wharton, and independent researchers?
Executive summary
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) publishes a low‑end per‑deportation figure—about $17,121 per removal—that captures immediate arrest, detention and processing but excludes many indirect costs [1]; by contrast, the Penn Wharton Budget Model aggregates broader fiscal and economic effects to arrive at roughly $70,236 per deportee in its 2025 brief [2] [3], while independent researchers and advocacy groups produce a wide range of per‑deportation estimates—studies cited by Penn Wharton range from about $30,591 to $109,880 per deportee and advocacy analyses warn of still larger fiscal and macroeconomic losses [1] [3] [4].
1. DHS: a narrow, operational accounting that yields the $17K headline
DHS and ICE report an average operational cost per removal in the low‑to‑mid five figures—commonly cited as about $17,121—which reflects agency estimates centered on arrest, detention days, adjudication and direct removal logistics rather than long‑run economic impacts or lost tax bases [1] [5].
2. Penn Wharton: layering fiscal modeling and economy‑wide consequences to reach ~$70K
The Penn Wharton Budget Model uses macrofiscal modeling to fold in not only direct enforcement expenditures but also projected declines in GDP, tax revenue loss, labor‑market shifts, and the downstream budgetary effects of mass removals, producing a per‑deportee figure of about $70,236 in its 2025 mass‑deportation brief [3] [2].
3. Independent studies and advocacy groups: wider ranges driven by detention, duration and secondary costs
Independent researchers and NGOs cited by Penn Wharton and elsewhere calculate much higher and more variable per‑deportation costs—study ranges cited include roughly $30,591 to $109,880 per deportee, with the American Immigration Council emphasizing detention‑capacity, legal costs, economic ripple effects and lost business activity as drivers that can push economic and fiscal costs far beyond agency tallies [1] [4] [6].
4. Why estimates diverge: scope, time‑horizon and what counts as a “deportation” cost
The core methodological split is scope: DHS focuses on near‑term operational outlays, independent analysts add detention‑per‑day assumptions (e.g., roughly $190/day cited by reporting on detention costs), legal processing fees, and losses in tax revenues and private income, while Penn Wharton deliberately models macroeconomic feedbacks—lost GDP, reduced wages for certain cohorts and long‑run fiscal deficits—so differences in time horizon and included categories explain most of the variance [5] [3] [4].
5. Uncertainties, contested inputs and political incentives in the numbers
Key inputs—average detention length, how many people would be detained versus “self‑deported,” legal adjudication costs, and assumptions about labor‑market displacement—are contested; DHS has been criticized for opaque demographic claims about “self‑deportations,” and advocacy groups warn that DHS operational estimates undercount legal, infrastructure and macroeconomic harms, while groups skeptical of mass‑deportation costs argue modeling choices can overstate long‑run losses [7] [6] [8].
6. Bottom line for policymakers and the public
The $17K DHS figure and the roughly $70K Penn Wharton estimate are both defensible only within their chosen framings: DHS captures immediate agency spending [1], Penn Wharton embeds broader fiscal and economic effects [3] [2], and independent studies supply a spectrum of higher numbers when detention scale, legal overhead and secondary economic harm are included [1] [4]; readers should therefore treat any single per‑deportation number as a function of definition and assumptions rather than an absolute truth [3] [4].