Southern Border Costing Taxpayers How Much?

As the discussion on how to manage immigration across the southern border persists, fresh statistics reveal the potential financial burden that the recent influx of immigrants could impose on American citizens.

According to Fox Illinois, a recent report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the expenses related to “unlawful immigration” amount to no less than $151 billion per year for American taxpayers, which includes costs associated with education, welfare, and medical care.

The report highlights that each American taxpayer is contributing nearly $1,200 annually towards these expenses on a personal level.

FAIR calculated this figure by subtracting the tax revenue paid by undocumented immigrants, which is just under $232 billion, from the overall detrimental economic effects of illegal immigration, which is $182 billion.

Nevertheless, an analyst from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, has criticized FAIR’s analysis, arguing that the report includes U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants, who are American citizens, as a cost factor, and disregards the tax contributions of those American citizens. Therefore, the analysis is flawed.

The Cato Institute has conducted its own analysis that examines the economic influence of all immigrants, regardless of their legal status. The report indicates that in 2018, a first-generation immigrant contributes $1.43 in taxes for every $1 they consume in government benefits, whereas native-born Americans pay $0.72 in taxes for every $1 they receive in government benefits.

President Biden and the Democrats know that the broken southern border is weighing heavy on the American taxpayers however they simply do not care. Things need to change fast.