Donald Trump, who was finally hit hard during last Thursday’s GOP debate by Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, his two main rivals for the presidential nomination, has said many stupid things since he announced his political ambitions. But none has been as ridiculous as his plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Ridiculous not only because it’s no more than an impossible racist pipe dream, but also because if by some perverse miracle such a task could be accomplished, the cost would be almost unimaginable. The billionaire, who despite four bankruptcies keeps touting his moneymaking prowess, has much to learn about the economic reality of such a plan.
As reported by the Fusion Network, taxpayers would be saddled with a $285 billion bill only for the first five years of a mass deportation strategy, according to the Center for American Progress. Deporting every undocumented immigrant, as the clownish GOP frontrunner proposes, would take 20 years at a cost to taxpayers of  — listen to this — $400 billion to $600 billion, as an American Action Forum study makes clear.
But that’s not all. A President Trump would be depriving the country of $11.6 billion in state and local taxes currently being paid by undocumented workers, according to a just released study by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy.
The ITEP study, that covers the 50 states and the District of Columbia, also points out that if President Obama’s executive actions on immigration –the ones Trump has vowed to rescind — were implemented, the combined nationwide state and local tax contributions by the undocumented would increase by $805 million. Comprehensive immigration reform would add $2.1 billion to the nation coffers.
The report, co-released with the New York Fiscal Policy Institute, found that undocumented immigrants nationwide pay on average an estimated 8 percent of their incomes in taxes. “To put this in perspective,” the report says, “the top 1 percent of taxpayers pay an average nationwide effective tax rate of just 5.4 percent.”
Not that Trump cares, but the truth is that, as Meg Wiehe, ITEP State Tax Policy Director has said, “undocumented immigrants greatly contribute to our nation’s economy, not just in labor but also with tax dollars.” So much so that last year they paid more into the national treasury than General Electric.
“Here’s the reality of what goes on ... the total federal income taxes paid by General Electric, one of our large corporations, Boeing — very large — and Verizon since 2008, all those three corporations, add up to less than zero,” Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said at a campaign rally in Iowa.
Ironically, while many of these corporate behemoths pay zero taxes, the eternally vilified undocumented immigrants have contributed almost $12 billion in state and local taxes.
Trump must heed Mitt Romney’s recent demand and release his tax returns. It’s time for Trump to tell the truth.
Oh sure, and it will snow in August.