Before Election day 2024, Donald Trump never really went into detail about his governing vision or platform, but the Republican was relatively consistent on one priority: He promised to pursue a policy of mass deportations — apparently in the form of militarized deportations and mass prison camp.

Yes, Trump made a little effort to deny the scope and scale of his right-wing deportation plans.

Now that he has won, the president-elect must prepare to implement these plans, although he doesn’t seem to have given much thought to the details. NBC News reports:

That’s exactly what you’d expect him to say. Trump said before the election that he would have “no choice” but to continue mass deportations, so it stands to reason that he would repeat the line now — even though he most certainly has a choice, and he’s almost certainly doing it wrong.

But when NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked about the cost of his plan, replied the president-elect“It is not a question of a price tag. It’s not – we really have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they have to go back to those countries because they don’t stay here. There is no price tag.”

There are a couple of ways to interpret the line “there is no price tag”. It’s possible, for example, that Trump suggested he doesn’t care much about how much a mass deportation initiative costs because he believes it will be worth it, regardless of the cost. His response may in fact have been a “no cost is too high” position.

However, it is also possible that the Republican believes that his policies will be free. He will only urge officials to raise millions of people, and all this can be done using existing federal spending.

If that’s what Trump is thinking, now seems like a good time to remind him that in reality there is a price tag.

The police reported itin response to the NBC News interview, “There are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security estimates from 2022, the most recent year for which the data is available — though Trump has claimed, without evidence, that the true number is more than double that. Deportation on that scale would cost at least $315 billion, according to one report out last month by the American Immigration Council.”

It is quite likely that Trump would argue that $315 billion for a mass deportation process – a process that he has said could be “nasty” and “bloody” — is money well spent.

Whether that is a consensus view remains to be seen.