A Queueing Analysis to Determine How Many Additional Beds Are Needed for the Detention and Removal of Illegal Aliens

Due to lack of detention capacity, tens of thousands of apprehended illegal aliens are released into the U.S. interior each year instead of being removed. We construct a queueing model of the detention and removal operations and estimate the model parameters using 2003 data from the U.S. Government. While current funding is for approximately 21,000 detention beds, we estimate that approximately 35,000 beds are needed to remove all apprehended illegal aliens based on 2003 arrival rates of detainees. The significant increase from 2003 to 2004 in the arrivals of detainees suggests that more than 35,000 beds may be required in the near future. ∗Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, [email protected] †Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, [email protected]