Since Donald Trump has begun the push to deport illegal aliens, we’ve seen stories about families being broken up, and people losing their homes or being deported without having been arrested for crimes other than illegal entry. The stories are framed sympathetically to wring American hearts, but they don’t change the debate because you can’t run a country based on emotional anecdotal narratives.
Still, that’s exactly what Democrats want the country to do. They’re suggesting that most of the 40 million illegal aliens they invited into the country over the last quarter century are doctors, engineers, or saints, and, therefore, that each one must be given full due process hearings before being sent home.
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It’s no doubt true that of the people being deported, there are some, perhaps many, who are fine upstanding members of their communities. But the problem is, it’s literally impossible to vet 40 million people with the immigration infrastructure we have now, or even one ten times as large. And that’s even more true when ICE has to search for and arrest most of them and literally battle supporters while doing so.
The only real solution to America’s immigration problem is to encourage as many as illegals as possible to return home and to arrest and deport those who don’t.
But how do you get them to self-deport? Here are some suggestions:
1. Tax remittances at 50% or more.
2. Eliminate all government funding for everything other than truly emergency medical care. After that care is rendered, deport them.
3. Guarantee jail time for any employer caught employing illegals.
4. Cut federal dollars going to any sanctuary city or state. Jail any government official who uses his / her office to assist illegals evade deportation.
5. Prosecute any NGO or “church” seeking to assist illegals to evade deportation.
6. Cut federal dollars to any state that uses public funds to support illegal. California, for example, allows illegals to participate in the state’s Medicaid program.
7. Eliminate banks’ ability to give mortgage or auto loans to illegals.
These steps may sound draconian, but the reality is that our country is in the midst of a crisis, and illegals are a big part of it.
The United States is $37 trillion in debt. Housing is unaffordable because illegal aliens occupy millions of homes and apartments. Hospitals are overwhelmed with illegals, most of whom can’t or don’t pay for the care they receive, leaving the hospitals to eat the costs or pass them on to paying patients.
And of course, the hotel rooms, food, and phones that cities across the country are providing for the swarms of illegals that have shown up on their doorsteps cause cuts in critical local services for citizens. A flood of illegal aliens also lowers wages for Americans because of the competition from illegal labor and the overcapacity schools that have to educate their often non-English speaking children.
Given this crisis, the government simply doesn’t have the ability to take the time to interview each illegal, along with his or her friends, family, and lawyers, before deciding whether to send them back or not. As such, the goal should be to deport every single illegal. Once they’re in their home countries, they can be processed for return to America based on what’s good for America. Most will still not be allowed to return, but nations have to make choices, and the good of their citizens should come first.
The leftists and NGOs in the Illegals Industrial Complex™ tell us these illegals only want to work hard and make a better life for themselves. Maybe, but here’s the thing these hypocrites never bother to tell you: Most can work hard and make a better life for themselves in their own countries.
Imagine that the 16 million illegal Mexicans in the United States go back to Mexico with years or decades of experience gained while working in the United States. That’s 10% of the population, all of whom would bring with them a wide variety of work experiences and skills that they could put to work helping to improve Mexico, a nation with an embarrassment of natural resources. Now imagine the same thing in Haiti, Nigeria, Colombia, and the rest of the countries from which illegals have come to the United States.
In reality, deporting the tens of millions of illegals in the country is probably the single best foreign aid program the United States could ever embark on. We already know that USAID was a colossal grift by NGOs where the funds rarely reached the intended recipients, that “aid” from the West rarely generates the promised results, and that even when Westerners build things in poverty-stricken areas they sometimes find themselves accused of perpetuating stereotypes. Deportations would be a far better way to bring American business knowledge and work skills to a struggling country than most of what we’ve been doing for years.
Add to that the fact that the people who actually made it to the United States were likely some of the most motivated and resourceful people in their home countries to begin with, and one realizes that deportations would reverse a trend of draining struggling countries of the very people best equipped to help them improve. Indeed, that “brain drain” of the most motivated people only functions to widen the gap between the developed and developing world by siphoning off those most likely to change the system in their home countries. Deportations would reverse that trend.
None of this would be easy, of course. Additionally, just because someone with skills or work experience returns to a dysfunctional country doesn’t mean that they can fix everything—but they have a much better opportunity to help their homeland (the ones they love so much they keep waving those flags) when they are in the country than they do from the United States.
The United States has spent trillions of dollars over the last half century trying to improve the conditions of much of the third world, usually with abysmal results. In 2025, we cannot continue to waste money like that anymore.
Donald Trump’s deportation push creates an opportunity to do something that counterintuitively can benefit both the United States and the countries from which the illegals came. It’s a policy that should animate all Americans.
But history tells us that there are a legion of grifters in the Illegals Industrial Complex™ who will stand in the way because they care more about their pocketbooks and power than they do about the country or the countries from which the illegals came, or often the illegals themselves… Trump should not allow them to derail him.
Follow Vince on X at @ImperfectUSA