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PolitiFact is great for calling out "liar liar pants on fire" for campaign claims (as well as confirming true ones). But often it's the cost of promises that keeps them from being fulfilled.

Without taking any political positions, we appreciate when research looks behind the claims to the underlying costs. Here are some recent examples:

Menzie Chinn writes in Costing the Forcible Removal of Undocumented Immigrants and Barring Entrance of Muslim Individuals from the Homeland:

Current estimates of the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States (based on the current definition of citizenship, Jus Solis) center around 11.5 million [1]. Mass removal of this number of individuals would likely require centers to at least temporarily detain, isolate and then process the deportees. This presumes that speedy expulsion of deportees can be effected. If not, then the detention centers might involve holding population over more extended periods.

The American Action Forum has estimated a 20 year fiscal cost for removal at between $400 to $600 billion. [2]. That figure does not include supply side reductions in potential output arising from a reduced labor force; nor does it include costs of modifying the US-Mexico and/or US-Canada border walls.

More discussion here.

Estimates for building a border wall and/or completing a border fence with Mexico range from $5 to $15 billion, not including any costs for acquiring private land or exercising eminent domain. But Congress will also have to authorize funds to maintain it. According to Politico,

In this year’s budget request, the Obama administration asked for $274 million to maintain the fence that’s already there. Upkeep for a fence that’s nearly three times longer would cost at least $750 million per year, assuming that a Trump administration wants to make sure its fence is in tip-top shape.