How do I use the Cost of Deportations Calculator?

When you first view the Cost of Deportations Calculator, it is populated with data at the federal level, or for the entire country. To drill down to the spending in your area:

1. Select your state name from the dropdown. The calculator will repopulate with the tax dollars from your selected state that are being spent on deportations, and what that amount of money could be spent on instead in the various categories.
2. To get even more local, select your county, congressional district, or city from the second dropdown. The calculator will repopulate with the tax dollars from your selected locality that are being spent on deportations, and what that amount of money could be spent on instead.
3. To see more categories, click the ➕ symbol at the bottom of the calculator.

What does the Cost of Deportations Calculator do?

The Cost of Deportations Calculator shows you how much U.S. taxpayer money is being spent on mass deportations through the remainder of Trump’s term at the national, state, county, congressional district, city, and average federal taxpayer level.

It also shows what that money could be spent on—such as teachers, nurses, firefighters, veterans’ health care, and nutritional support—instead. For each option, it shows what the full amount being spent on mass deportations could fund.

Can I see how much of MY taxes pay for mass deportations?

Yes! The average amount per taxpayer appears in the dark box at the top of the calculator, immediately after the large number (representing the total amount spent in the country, your state, county, congressional district, or town). This is the average per taxpayer for the area selected. Every taxpayer’s situation will be different.

Isn’t mass deportation saving taxpayers money, since it costs so much to support immigrants?

No. This gets the math backward.

Unauthorized immigrants pay taxes—income taxes, Social Security taxes, sales taxes, and more—like everyone else does. In fact, research shows unauthorized immigrants pay close to $100 billion a year in taxes. And most of that money helps pay for programs they are not even allowed to use themselves. The law prevents most unauthorized immigrants (and even many with a lawful status) from getting food stamps, Medicaid, or most other public benefits. Deportations will reduce city, state, and federal revenues, making it more difficult to provide basic services to all residents. (For more details, read our FAQ.) DHS recently said a single deportation cost about $18,000. But that’s just the initial cost to taxpayers. Deporting workers will lead to massive job losses, due to industries losing workers they can’t easily replace, as well as a decline in demand for goods and services. That in turn leads to less economic activity overall and less growth, which reduces the number of available jobs and shrinks the tax base. Taxpayers would benefit more from an economy that allows workers to stay on the job, continue paying taxes,supporting their families and investing in local communities.

It’s simply not credible to argue that a $268.9 billion mass deportation regime represents cost savings. It’s a massive new expense to remove people who were already paying a significant amount of money into the economy and contributing to its growth. Every dollar spent supporting and building this false narrative is a dollar that isn’t going to schools, health care, or housing for all U.S. residents.

Why can’t I find my location in the list? Why does my location show up more than once? Why does the name of my location look…odd?

There are several reasons why this could be happening. Sometimes a city and a county have the same, or a similar, name. Also, states organize their areas differently. Some states use boroughs or census areas; others have parishes or planning districts. Some don’t have counties. States have created different bureaucratic labels, and the federal government attempts to standardize them.

For example, in Virginia, Harrisonburg is both its own independent city and the name of a county. These are two differently defined locations with two different tax numbers. So, Harrisonburg will appear twice, with slightly different results, because they are two different places to the U.S. Census Bureau and the IRS.

Add to that, different agencies in the federal government—and sometimes even different reports within the same agency—don’t count the places we live in the same way in every state.

We are working to resolve some of the inconsistencies, so all users can get the clearest answers to how the federal government is using their taxes to pay for Trump’s deportation regime. With over 33,000 locations to review, it will take a little time to resolve these issues. In the meantime, you can learn more about the idiosyncrasies of federal data in our technical documentation.

Where can I get the full dataset for the Cost of Deportations Calculator?

If you are an academic, student, non-profit researcher or advocate, or a journalist, you may download and use all the Cost of Deportations Calculator related materials without requesting permission.

This is permitted under a non-commercial use Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

If you are a commercial enterprise looking to incorporate the Cost of Deportations Calculator data in any product that will be sold or as part of services and data you provide to paying customers, you may request commercial use by contacting EPI.

Download the Cost of Deportations full dataset

Here’s our suggested citation: Economic Policy Institute. 2026. The Cost of Deportations Calculator.

What is the methodology EPI economists and their partners used to create the Cost of Deportations Calculator?

The Cost of Deportations Calculator’s technical documentation outlines the methodology and defines the areas, and various components of the calculator. Any updates to the methodology will be released at the same time as the calculator data.

Read the methodology and technical documentation.