A new Kino Border Initiative report sheds light on Mexicans deported to Nogales between May and June 2025. More than half of the deported people had lived in the U.S. for at least six years (some >30 years), and a third of them had been initially arrested by local law enforcement.
![Let’s consider just five items in the bill.
1. $46.5 billion for border barrier construction.
“Planned investments,” the House Homeland Security Committee reported, “include: completion of 701 miles of primary [border] wall, construction of 900 miles of river barriers, 629 miles of secondary barriers, and replacement of 141 miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers.”
How much is $46.5 billion? Adjusted for inflation, it would be:
2.7 times what the first Trump administration spent building over 400 miles of new 30-foot-tall border wall ( $16.45 billion minus an unspent $2.2 billion 2020 dollars).
1.7 times the value of all the USAID programming that the Trump administration unlawfully canceled in 2025 ($27.7 billion).
About a quarter of the cost of the entire Apollo space program of the 1960s and 1970s ($25.4 billion in 1973 dollars).
1.2 years of operating a universal free pre-K program for all U.S. children ($351 billion, in 2022 dollars, over 10 years)
The equivalent of providing $6,300 to each migrant whom Border Patrol apprehended at the US-Mexico border during the entire Biden administration, including multiple handouts for repeat crossers (about 7.4 million apprehensions).](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:t5hgkoxrsxpe3wfisqfeymg5/bafkreibwjlps2ksxrilh2xbvshk4jyclh77bahudt4erfdsure6x64gxny)
