If Republican front-runners Donald Trump or Ted Cruz were to fulfill their stance of deporting more than 11 million undocumented immigrants early in their respective administrations, the action could trigger yet another recession for the U.S. economy.

A new report from the American Action Forum (AAF) estimates both candidates' plans would cost between $400 billion to $600 billion over two decades and would reduce the overall size of the economy by a recession level of 5.7 percent.

Expedited Deportations Could Trigger Recession

In addition, the move would lower the gross domestic product by an estimated $1.4 trillion, based on the federal government maximizing deportations at roughly 400,000 per year over that two-year period at current funding levels for enforcement officers, courts and transportation.

Trump, who in a recent CNN/ORC poll led his closest GOP challenger, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, by a staggering 33 points, has vowed that he would have the job done in as little as 18 months.

Based on projections by AAF, a center-right think tank run by former Congressional Budget Office director Doug Holtz-Eakin, such a massive undertaking would require an average of 15,000 deportations per day and a major expansion of the country's immigration and deportation operations.

The AAF report adds that cost to the federal budget would be dwarfed by the $1 trillion blow such a move would deal to the U.S. economy. In the end, all the machinations are projected to trigger a collapse easily on par with the Great Recession all over again.

"The steep decline in the labor force would cause the economy [to] decline sharply," the AAF report reads. "At the end of 2018, the economy would be 5.7 percent smaller than it would be if the government did not remove all undocumented immigrants. For purposes of comparison, note that the decline in real GDP during the Great Recession was quite similar - 6.3 percent."

Trump, Cruz Double Down on Mass Deportation Pledges

During the most recent Republican presidential debate, held in Houston last month, Trump repeated his pledge to carry out the deportations over an 18-month window if he is elected president.

"They will go out," he said. "They will come back - some will come back, the best, through a process. They have to come back legally. They have to come back through a process, and it may not be a very quick process."

Meanwhile, Cruz has also pledged to deport anyone deemed to be in the country illegally. He further dismissed Trump's plan to allow some to return as "amnesty."

In order to enforce the immigration policies proposed by either Trump or Cruz, the report concluded the federal government would need to have 90,582 people working in apprehensions, 30,521 criminal investigators, 53,381 people working in custody operations, 348,831 beds and 2,565 detention facilities, 32,445 federal attorneys to legally process the undocumented immigrants, and 17,296 chartered flights per year to transport the undocumented immigrants to their countries of origin.

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