For the price of the Iraq War, we could've humanely dealt with illegal immigration by paying every Mexican their country's minimum wage to stay in Mexico for ten years.
The minimum wage in Mexico is 52.59 pesos per day, or $4.11 per day at current exchange rates. Paying this wage every day of the year for 10 years to the 108 million Mexicans would cost $1.62 trillion, $1.38 trillion less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the total cost of the Iraq War.
Image used under a Creative Commons license from nathangibbs.
