My policy idea is simple: pay illegal aliens $5,000 to deport themselves.
Overview
We need to incentive illegals to deport themselves. Why? Because it’s cheaper than doing it against their will. By aligning incentives, it will cost the American tax payer less, and the process will be quicker, easier, and more thorough, not to mention it will gain valuable support in the public while bypassing blockages that individual states may put up against deportations.
Policy Concept
The Trump Administration in connection with the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol create a simple, two-part policy:
Part #1. If you are here illegally, you have 90 days to turn yourself in to designated authorities. If you do, you will be received like a valued tourist. You will be treated well, fed well, put in a hotel, and promptly flown back to your country. We will also give you $5,000 for cooperating.
Part #2. After 90 days, part 1 expires and illegals still here will be viewed as criminals. The $5,000 bounty will now be given to US citizens that report illegals. Every illegal that a citizen reports that leads to their deportation will earn that citizen $5,000 (just like vandal reporting at construction sites and rewards for help finding FBI most wanted criminals).
Supplemental: Use an app like the CBP One app to coordinate. This will foster organization and support the operation at scale.
Why This Works
*The policy aligns incentives in a peacefully and mutually beneficial way
*The policy utilizes carrots and sticks and time-sensitive timelines to both incentives immediate action and to prevent illegals from gaming the system over time by coming back into the country
*After 60 days, the policy decentralizes the effort by incentivizing Americans to help thereby reducing cost and staying focused on results not effort
- The policy is humane and generous and thus should receive broad support nationally and internationally
The Cost
Estimates say that illegals costs the US taxpayer $150B-$450B a year. Another estimate says that deporting all the illegals could coset more than $1T. Let’s view that as a sunk cost and realize we will be forced to spend that one way or another, so let’s focus it on solving the problem.
At $5,000 per illegal, deporting 10 million illegals would cost $500 billion (maybe $600B-$700B when including the cost of the flights etc). That’s 1-4 years in costs. It’s nothing in the long term.
Think of the USA as a company. This approach is like having a giant layoff. It’s expensive upfront, but it’s cheaper in the long run and allows you to immediately restructure and unlock value.
Variations
There are countless variations of this concept such as larger or smaller rewards, sliding scales, and the like. What’s important is the concept - incentivize illegals to leave the country on good terms. Then it happens quickly and everyone wins in both the short and long term. The administration can work out what they think is the best way.
Drawbacks
- The most obvious drawback is the moral gut punch of realizing you are paying people who broke the law. But that’s why the idea is so good. It’s a counterintuitive first-principle approach that treats the past as a sunk costs, analyzes the opportunity cost of the problem, and says, “What is the cheapest, fastest, easiest, and most thorough way to solve this?”
- Rewarding citizens to report illegals could cause violence in various ways. That needs to be thought through thoroughly.
Summary
By financially incentivizing illegal aliens to leave the country peacefully we will achieve deportation numbers quicker, cheaper and more thorough than deportations through force. Such a system creates a win-win both for those here illegally and for the American people. It is a humane, first principle way of viewing and solving the illegal alien problem that will likely receive national and international support.