Since President Joe Biden has taken office, millions of illegal aliens have entered the United States, according to new data released by the Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR), which regularly tracks government data on border crossings.
As part of a prior investigation into the financial impact that illegal migration has had on the U.S. since January 2021, FAIR has determined that illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children cost Americans $150.6 billion per year.
Now, with the sharp increase in illegal migration under the Biden administration, Americans will be paying an additional $12.6 billion annually to cover the costs of illegal migration to the U.S, bringing the total cost to at least $163 billion per year.
FAIR projects that if the pace of illegal aliens entering the U.S. is not slowed, the annual net cost will exceed $200 billion by 2026.
“As just about every mayor and governor around the country – including those who preside over jurisdictions that have declared themselves sanctuaries for illegal aliens – has loudly proclaimed, the fiscal and social burdens of the Biden administration’s sabotage of our immigration enforcement policies are unsustainable,” Dan Stein, president of FAIR, said in a statement.
The latest data was produced based on census survey data, and Current Population Survey (CPS) data. It also excludes a large number of “gotaways” and people who have been paroled into the country and live their lives under the radar, meaning the actual cost is likely much higher.
FAIR says that the extra $12.6 billion is just a “down payment,” as annual costs will continue to grow as parolees become eligible for a range of benefits, and migrants become more settlers and increase their usage of public services, including education and healthcare.
During Fiscal Year 2022, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had more than 2.7 million migrant encounters, nearly a million more than the year prior, and more than all four years of the Trump administration combined.
If the current pace continues, the first three years of the Biden administration would have produced more illegal immigration than the entire decade of the 2010s, according to FAIR.
“The impact of these policies is causing social upheaval, setting states … against other states, big cities against surrounding communities, overwhelming school districts and social service providers, as economic migrants from all across the globe pour across our borders,” Stein added. “The report, How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the United States? 2023 Update, provides hard, albeit conservative, numbers that graphically illustrate the magnitude of this self-inflicted crisis.”
