Providing for illegal aliens who have entered the U.S. under the Biden administration will cost Americans an extra $20.4 billion per year, according to a new cost analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Currently, Americans are already paying more than $140 billion per year for illegal aliens and their families, FAIR states. The National Research Council estimates that number to be $346 billion.
Decades of legal precedent establish that the U.S. may not deny certain services and benefits to non-citizens, including education and healthcare.
A 1982 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plyler v. Doe found that states may not deny free public education on account of a student’s immigration status. As of 2017, state educational expenditures for America’s non-citizen student population topped $44 billion per year.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires hospitals participating in Medicare to treat all persons seeking medical care irrespective of payment method, ability to pay, or insurance status.
In 2011, Congress included a provision in the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) that reimburses hospitals, physicians, and ambulance providers costs incurred for providing services under EMTALA to illegal aliens.
FAIR estimates annual federal medical costs of funding healthcare for illegal migrants at more than $17 billion, while state medical costs exceed $12 billion.
Since Biden took office, more than 1.1 million illegal aliens have entered the U.S., according to research from the Center For Immigration Studies (CIS). For comparison, the total foreign-born population that entered during the entire four years of the Trump presidency was 1.5 million.
“Even in an age in which trillion dollar spending packages are considered modest, the additional $20.4 billion the Biden Border Crisis has heaped onto the backs of American taxpayers is still staggering,” said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “$20.4 billion could address some very important needs of the American public, instead of covering the costs of the surge of illegal migration triggered by this administration’s policies.”
FAIR states that price tag could give every homeless veteran $50,000 per year for ten years, hire more than 315,000 new police officers, hire 330,000 new teachers, or fund the construction of the border wall.
“According to another new report, 35 percent of U.S. families with a full-time worker struggle to meet their basic needs. These are the people President Biden pledged to champion,” Stein said. “Instead, he is choosing to divert an additional $20.4 billion away from their needs, in order to fund a radical open borders agenda with no end in sight.”
