1. It’s hard to find official statistics when the administration has zero systems in place for enacting and documenting the enforcement of its policies, but this can give you a better idea: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/19/the-facts-about-trumps-policy-of-separating-families-at-the-border/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c6e2f76de1b0
2. It’s not about googling to death; it’s about citing legitimate sources. Yes, there are organizations that say undocumented immigrants cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars, but some of them are classified as hate groups by the ACLU, who defend the rights of even neo-nazis to organize. The fact is that most undocumented immigrants are very poor, and that the contributions of very poor people into the system never match what they take out. That said, the people who benefit most from the systems and infrastructures that you cite are not poor undocumented immigrants, but massive corporations whose semi-trucks tear those same roads apart, native born white folks who benefit from systemic violence in policing, etc. etc. Undocumented immigrants don’t often call the police. They are not often able to use Social Security or Medicare.
You say it’s unrelated that the non-English speaking students try harder, but it’s not. Those immigrant children are inarguably a net gain to the American economy. https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/opinion/campaign-stops/what-does-immigration-actually-cost-us.amp.html
We won’t get into healthcare because it’s beyond complex and those numbers have not at all been fleshed out and it’s all rhetoric on both sides... which brings me to...
3. Yes, fucking rhetoric. Yes, hate-mongering. No, these are not emotional words. When Trump says that Mexicans are bringing rapists and criminals, he is appealing to emotion and fear. And he’s not being truthful in the least, as native born Americans are far more likely to commit crimes in the U.S. than undocumented immigrants. It’s amazing that Trump, the politicians around him and his supporters so consistently call progressives snowflakes and accuse them of emotional appeals, yet the minute they are called out for saying things that are factually untrue, they cry invalidation. I never called you a xenophobe.
It’s not about deflection. It’s about humanization. These are human issues. People, by definition, cannot be illegal unless being alive is illegal. Their presence in a given country may be against the law, but to call that person an “illegal” (which, by the way, is not a fucking noun), is to deflect and invalidate their humanity. That’s what rhetoric is. That’s what hate-mongering and appealing to emotion, as Trump and his administration consistently do, does to people seeking a better life.
You can decide that immigration should be curbed and not be racist. You can believe that borders are inane and meaningless and still understand that the issue is complex and has real effects on economies. But to advance rhetoric that dehumanizes and paints a completely false picture is dishonest and evil.
Your conclusion is sensible and empathetic, especially if you mean to say that such a path should be much easier. Why you’d choose to persist with the rhetoric that Trump and his cronies prefer, I won’t understand.