> deportation rates are much too low

“U.S. Border Patrol agents recorded nearly 238,000 apprehensions of migrants crossing the southern border illegally in fiscal year 2025” [1]. For 2012 to 2015, the chart shows about 360k, 420k, 480k and 330k, respectively.

That means ICE is spending $330 to 580 thousand dollars per additional Southwest border encounter in 2025 versus 2012. ($250 to 440 thousand if we average Obama’s second-term numbers.)

These numbers 10x even San Francisco’s circa 2016 homeless-industrial profligacy [2]. Unless ICE is a ball of wormy corruption, they’re clearly not focused on immigration enforcement.

If you prefer anecdotes, I live in Wyoming. Our farms are de facto exempt from enforcement. I believe in enforcing our immigration laws while we work to reform through the legislature. But that's clearly not what ICE is doing. The most-generous interpretation is they're making videos that make people who want enforcement feel good.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/10/icymi-illegal-cr...

[2] https://www.hoover.org/research/despite-spending-11-billion-...