NATIONAL

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The Economic Policy Institute released an analysis estimating that federal mass deportation policies will cost about $268.9 billion through the end of the current presidential term, with Tennessee's share at roughly $4.5 billion, or $1,961 per Tennessee taxpayer, Tennessee Lookout reported August 13, 2026.

The figures are the institute's estimates, not government accounting. EPI, a think tank that describes its research as focused on the economic condition of working Americans, built an online calculator producing state, county, and city cost figures from IRS income data, Institute for Policy Studies projections of federal deportation expenditures, and other sources.

The Department of Homeland Security pushed back on the framing, saying illegal immigration costs taxpayers more than $150 billion annually and calling deportation investments "absolutely vital to stop the bleeding." Both figures are contested characterizations from interested institutions, and readers can weigh the methodologies behind each.

For scale, EPI's report says Tennessee's estimated $4.5 billion share could alternatively fund 21,401 firefighter salaries, Medicaid coverage for 246,018 patients, or 18,750 teacher hires, per the Lookout's account.

The federal enforcement build-out the estimate prices is already concrete in this region. The 901 Report has documented the Memphis Safe Task Force's operations, advocacy tracking of transfer flights out of a Memphis private terminal, detainee bus transfers from the Mason, Tennessee facility, and a $63 million federal contract for a 24-hour immigration enforcement call center planned for Adams, Tennessee.

Why It Matters for Memphis

Federal enforcement spending is public money, and this is the first widely circulated attempt to price the current build-out at the county level. Whatever weight a reader gives a think tank's model, the underlying question is auditable: what deportation operations actually cost here, and what the same dollars would otherwise buy in a county that borrowed to make payroll this summer.

The Oversight Question

Estimates argue; documents decide. Which federal budget lines fund the task force, the flights, the transfers, and the call center in Tennessee, and will the region's congressional offices ask for that itemization on the record?

Your city. Your money. Your receipts.