Illegal immigration is now costing U.S. taxpayers $151 billion a year, marking a 30% increase in five years, according to a new study by a hawkish immigration group being released this week.
The Washington Times:
Speaker Johnson said illegal immigrants allowed in by President Biden’s border chaos are showing up at government offices to sign up for benefits and services, and when they do they’re being prodded to sign up to vote.
The study, “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers 2023” by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) concludes that American taxpayers pay overall around $182 billion annually for services and benefits to illegal immigrants. However, those costs are offset by around $31 billion in taxes collected from what they estimate are 15.5 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Those costs represent a 30% increase since 2017, when FAIR — which advocates for stricter border security and lower levels of immigration overall — put the annual net cost at $116 billion a year.
While illegal immigrants are not eligible for the majority of federal welfare programs, the study also takes into account services, such as education and food assistance programs, provided to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants and also programs that they may be eligible for at the state level.
The largest cost that FAIR identifies is K-12 education, which the group estimates costs a total of $78 billion a year. Health care – including uncompensated hospital expenditures, Medicaid fraud and Medicaid for U.S. born children – is estimated to cost $42.7 billion a year. Costs related to criminal justice at the federal, state and local levels, which includes federal immigration enforcement, are estimated at approximately $47 billion a year.
Food assistance and nutrition programs, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) costs are estimated by the group to cost about $13.5 billion a year. The study estimates that each illegal immigrant or U.S.-born child of illegal immigrants costs $8,776 a year, and costs each taxpayer $1,156 a year.
Costs vary depending on the state, with illegal immigrants and their children costing California nearly $31 billion a year – the most costly identified by the study. Texas spends approximately $13 billion a year, while West Virginia bears the lowest costs at $33 million a year.
“As America struggles to meet countless societal needs while facing the realities of our staggering $31 trillion national debt, the costs of providing for millions of people who have no legal right to be in the United States continues to grow at an alarming rate,” FAIR President Dan Stein said in a statement.
Stein said the financial burden has been inflicted on taxpayers “by the open borders advocates at every level of government” and accused the Biden administration of having to have failed to tackle the ongoing entry of illegal immigrants into the U.S.”
“Not only is the Biden administration refusing to rein in illegal immigration or remove the people who are breaking our laws, they are promulgating policies that actually encourage more of it while offering new protections and benefits to those who settle here illegally,” he said. “Likewise, a growing number of states and localities create their own costly magnets for illegal aliens by declaring themselves sanctuaries and offering new benefits and services. This has to stop.”
sources: X, Fox News
