The high cost of anti-immigrant law

-- Stuart Carlson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
From Think Progress:

Today on CBS’s Early Show, Bay Buchanan — right-wing strategist and sister of Pat Buchanan — argued that the government can, and should, deport all the undocumented workers in the United States.

BUCHANAN: Every guest worker program in the history of this country and any other country around the world has always turned into amnesty. He says it’s impossible to move these people out. It is certainly not impossible. It is very realistic. We should absolutely stand up to the law and let people come through legal channels, but in no way reward them for illegal behavior.

But as Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) later points out, it is “unrealistic to deport” 11 million people, many of whom are already paying U.S. taxes. A 2005 American Progress study found that it would cost at least $206 billion over five years to deport all undocumented workers. The annual $41.2 billion cost exceeds the entire FY06 budget for the Department of Homeland Security.

Of course, an alternative would be to give them all five-year prison terms, which are part of Rep. F. Jim Sensenbrenner's bill to make it a felony to be in this country illegally. How much would that cost?