(The Center Square) – The influx of migrants across the country’s southern border could cost taxpayers $451 billion, a report released Monday by the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee says.
The fourth report released by the committee says that the tab includes housing, education, property damage done by migrants, law enforcement and health care costs.
A report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services showed that “emergency services for undocumented aliens” added up to $7 billion in fiscal 2021 and $5.4 billion in fiscal 2022, with migrants receiving at least $8 billion in improper Medicaid payouts (10% of the nation’s total of $80 billion).
Migrants are also putting a strain on the nation’s criminal justice infrastructure, with the cost adding up to $8.95 billion in fiscal 2022.
“It is unconscionable for Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas and President [Joe] Biden to force the American people to pick up the tab for the crisis their border policies created,” Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tennessee, said in a news release. “Communities across this country, from the smallest border town to our largest city, are dealing with depleted emergency resources, public housing crises, overwhelmed public-school systems, damaged or destroyed property, and overwhelming law enforcement costs – burdens these hardworking taxpayers were never prepared for, and should not be forced to pay.
“Today’s report outlines the devastating costs of refusing to enforce our nation’s laws and reaffirms the Homeland majority’s urgent demand for Biden and Mayorkas to end the failed policies that are threatening to bankrupt our cities and states.”
The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that in the 2021-2022 school year, 5.1 million public school students (6.5% of the total) were the children of migrants. Most of them (3.8 million) qualify as limited English proficiency students, costing taxpayers $59 billion, while those not classified as LEP learners costing taxpayers $16.9 billion.
