American taxpayers could end up paying thousands of dollars per person to finance the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign, according to a new report.
The estimate comes from a newly launched calculator developed by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) that breaks down the projected cost of deportation efforts at the national, state, and local levels.
The tool is based on the organization's estimate that the federal government will spend $268.9 billion on deportation operations during Trump's second term, using funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, budget reconciliation measures, annual appropriations and other redirected federal resources.
The report argues that the billions allocated to immigration enforcement represent a significant opportunity cost, suggesting the same funding could instead expand access to food assistance, health care or affordable housing for millions of Americans.
According to EPI's analysis, the projected deportation budget could provide more than 118 million additional Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients over the remaining two and a half years of Trump's presidency.
Alternatively, the funding could extend Medicaid coverage to nearly 12 million additional people or provide low-cost public housing assistance to more than 9.7 million households. "I don't think people realize how much money is being spent on these mass deportations," Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center and a research associate at EPI, told Axios.
"In almost every place in the country, there are a lot of people who are struggling to not be hungry, to have affordable housing, kids are in overcrowded classrooms, people don't have health insurance, and those are the things that matter most," Lafer said.
"Instead, we're spending an unbelievable amount of money, chasing down, detaining, deporting people," he added, noting that most undocumented immigrants do not have criminal records. "It costs money that is desperately needed for other things in almost every community in the country."
Immigration enforcement remains one of the defining priorities of Trump's second administration. The White House has significantly expanded deportation efforts through increased funding for ICE detention facilities and border enforcement operations.
The Department of Homeland Security disputed the report's framing, arguing that the financial burden stems from illegal immigration rather than enforcement itself. A DHS spokesperson told Axios that the Biden administration failed to address the long-term costs associated with unauthorized immigration and defended the Trump administration's self-deportation initiative as a less expensive alternative.
The department encouraged undocumented immigrants to use the CBP Home app, which offers participants a free flight and a $2,600 stipend to voluntarily leave the United States. According to DHS, the total cost of a voluntary departure is approximately $5,100 per person, which the agency says saves taxpayers more than $13,000 compared with carrying out a traditional, non-voluntary deportation.
DHS previously told Axios that a standard deportation costs the federal government roughly $18,000 per person. EPI's calculator also highlights how the financial burden varies across the country because it is based on each area's share of federal income tax contributions.
Residents of Washington, D.C., would face the nation's highest estimated cost at $3,930 per taxpayer, according to the analysis. EPI says that amount could alternatively fund SNAP benefits for 455,000 people, Medicaid coverage for 30,000 residents or public housing assistance for approximately 21,000 households.
In Connecticut, taxpayers would contribute an estimated $3,395 each, enough, according to the report, to finance SNAP benefits for 1.9 million people, Medicaid coverage for 186,000 residents or housing assistance for roughly 181,000 households.
States with lower federal tax contributions would shoulder a smaller share of the projected costs. In West Virginia, for example, taxpayers would pay an estimated $1,297 each, which EPI says could instead provide SNAP benefits for 328,000 people, Medicaid coverage for 31,000 residents, or housing assistance for approximately 46,000 households.
