Even if you do not count the extra day in that leap year, that works out to $46,654.30 for each detention bed occupied by an illegal alien for 365 days.
The approximately $46,654 it cost to house a detained illegal alien for 365 days in fiscal 2016 was approximately $104 more than the average income for Americans 15 and older that year—which, according to Census Bureau Table PINC-01, was $46,550.
The GAO report—“Immigration Detention: Opportunities Exist to Improve Cost Estimates”—examined how ICE calculates its anticipated budgetary needs for detaining illegal aliens. It discovered, for example, that ICE had made some basic mathematical errors in preparing its budget justifications for Congress, including a $34.7 million multiplication error in its fiscal 2014 request and a $129 million multiplication error in its fiscal 2015 request.
ICE also made a $4,000 multiplication error in calculating its fiscal 2018 budget justification, the report said.
“To determine its immigration detention costs, ICE primarily relies on two variables—the average dollar amount required to house one adult detainee for one day (bed rate) and the average daily population (ADP) of detainees,” said the GAO report.
“In order to determine the amount necessary to operate the detention system for adult detainees, ICE multiplies the projected ADP by the projected bed rate by the number of days in the year,” said GAO.