U.S. Spending $56M to Fly Immigrants Home

This seems a very silly use of 56 million dollars, with more planned for next year. Some of these people left their country years ago as teens and don't have places to go. DP

Flying Migrants Home an Expensive, Growing Part of Immigration Dilemma
By JENNIFER TALHELM

ABC News: SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP)— U.S. marshals unlock the prisoners' leg shackles, body chains and handcuffs when green jungle and turquoise sea come into close view.

As the U.S. government's MD-83 airliner bumps to the ground at the small San Salvador airport, the 44 men and five women being deported home to El Salvador cheer. One man belts out a few bars of a Tom Petty song: "I'm free-ee…."

For a growing number of migrants picked up in the United States for immigration violations or criminal offenses, this is the way their American experience ends: a free flight home.

As Congress debates how to overhaul the nation's immigration system, the U.S. government is spending about $56 million to fly illegal immigrants home or to new locations within the U.S.

Last year, the government flew 60,000 people mostly Central and South Americans to their home countries for about $600 per person. An additional 35,000 were moved inside the U.S., mostly to be closer to the Mexican border in preparation for deportation.

Officials want to double the deportations in the next year as the U.S. ends its practice of freeing some illegal immigrants until they can be returned to their native countries.

Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.