The findings of this analysis show that if a border wall stopped a small fraction of the illegal immigrants who are expected to come in the next decade, the fiscal savings from having fewer illegal immigrants in the country would be sufficient to cover the costs of the wall. This analysis takes the likely education level of illegal border-crossers and applies fiscal estimates developed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) for immigrants by education level. NAS calculates the future fiscal balance immigrants create — taxes paid minus costs. NAS reports fiscal balances as "net present values", which places a lower value on future expenditures than on current expenditures.

Based on the NAS data, illegal border-crossers create an average fiscal burden of approximately $74,722 during their lifetimes, excluding any costs for their U.S.-born children. If a border wall stopped between 160,000 and 200,000 illegal crossers — 9 to 12 percent of those expected to successfully cross in the next decade — the fiscal savings would equal the $12 to $15 billion cost of the wall.1

Among the findings:

There is agreement among researchers that illegal immigrants overwhelmingly have modest levels of education — most have not completed high school or have only a high school education.

There is also agreement that immigrants who come to America with modest levels of education create significantly more in costs for government than they pay in taxes.

A recent NAS study estimated the lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) of immigrants by education. Averaging the cost estimates from that study and combining them with the education levels of illegal border-crossers shows a net fiscal drain of $74,722 per illegal crosser.2

The above figures are only for the original illegal immigrants and do not include any costs for their U.S.-born descendants. If we use the NAS projections that include the descendants, the fiscal drain for border-crossers grows to $94,391 each.

If a border wall prevented 160,000 to 200,000 illegal crossings (excluding descendants) in the next 10 years it would be enough to pay for the estimated $12 to $15 billion costs of the wall.

Newly released research by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) done for the Department of Homeland Security indicates that 170,000 illegal immigrants crossed the border successfully without going through a port of entry in 2015.3 While a significant decline in crossings from a decade ago, it still means that there may be 1.7 million successful crossings in the next decade. If a wall stopped just 9 to 12 percent of these crossings it would pay for itself.

If a wall stopped half of those expected to successfully enter illegally without going through a port of entry at the southern border over the next 10 years, it would save taxpayers nearly $64 billion — several times the wall's cost.
Important Caveats and Observations About These Estimates

uh is that a "democrat we?"

they are C.O.D. i didn't order it

consider it like pizza

All in all it's just another brick in the wall

More illegals increases the demand and prices of some goods and services in this country i.e. higher apartment rents in some places for example.

First and foremost, since the end of the WWII TRILLIONS of dollars have been flushed down the toilet for defending Europe, Vietnam, war on poverty, educating illegal immigrants and a list of waste that is far too long to print here. Another $20 billion for a border wall would not put the US any further into debt than what we are. While it may take time to get reimbursed, extracting the cost of the wall from Mexico is possible as long as we do not publicize it and rub that fact in the collective noses of the Mexican people.

All I can say is that Tomahawk missile is one of the reasons we can have nice things in the USA and the rest of the civilized world. If not for a little military brutality every now and then we would all be living like third world savages. It's a survival-of-the-fittest world out there and if not for our MILITARY our lives here would suck. Thank us Europe.

Just take some of that money and build a bunch of Arthur Treacher's. That will stimulate the economy and would be delicious!

20 million

How much is a ladder? People are still going to get over easily.

For the terrorism argument, we will still have 3 other sides of the country without border walls.

For the folks who think/post that we should be helping homeless vets and not immigrants, the 20 billion cost of the wall divided by the number of homeless vets in America (about 50,000) would leave $400,000 for EACH vet.

It pays to think about things.

I don't care what it costs taxpayers to get me more loyal undocumented immigrant votes! I'm willing to spent every penny you make in order to bring in more of my constituents!

At $75,000 per illegal stopped from entering, Mexico will have paid for the wall in less than six years.

Trump was right, again.

The Wall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> At $75,000 per illegal stopped from entering,
> Mexico will have paid for the wall in less than
> six years.
>
> Trump was right, again.


So they won't be selling bricks after all?