Illegal Immigrants Cost US Taxpayers an Extra $20.4 Billion Annually: Report

Haitian migrants, part of a group of over 10,000 people staying in an encampment on the U.S. side of the border, cross the Rio Grande river to get food and water in Mexico, after another crossing point was closed near the Acuna Del Rio International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas on Sept. 19, 2021. Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. taxpayers are forking out an additional over $20 billion each year to meet the needs of illegal aliens who entered the country under the Biden administration, according to a new cost analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

The immigration group said it “conservatively estimates” that American taxpayers will end up paying each illegal alien $9,232, or an overall $20.4 billion burden a year to support the population. It comes in addition to the $140 billion existing annual cost of providing benefits and services for long-term illegal immigrants.

The calculation is based on an estimated 2.3 million illegal aliens who successfully entered the country’s interior under President Joe Biden, including about one million “gotaways” who evaded apprehension and have since disappeared into American communities.

“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,” FAIR President Dan Stein said in a Sept. 13 press release.

After rolling back key Trump-era policies designed to deter illegal entry through the southern border, Biden has presided over the largest number of apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the U.S.–Mexico border in a calendar year in history.

“$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,” Stein continued.

He cited a recent study that found “more than one-third of families that work full time, year-round do not earn enough to cover a basic family budget that includes food, housing, child care, medical care, transportation, taxes, and other necessities.”

“These are the people President Biden pledged to champion. 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,” the president concluded.

The group detailed that the estimated $20.4 billion could provide every homeless American veteran $50,000 per year for a decade, or offer a grocery voucher of roughly $410 to every U.S. family earning $50,000 or less. The money could also be used to hire 330,000 new teachers or more than 315,000 police officers, according to the analysis.

The Biden administration, in the meanwhile, has touted its increased funding of the Fiscal Year 2023 for the Department of Homeland Security, as well as what it called a “Root Causes Strategy” to cut border encounters, by addressing the violence, organized crime, corruption, and poverty in Central America, which drive many to flee.

Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that the U.S. southern border is “secure” during a Sunday interview.

“The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular, over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed.” Harris said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

FAIR said last month that a total of 4.9 million illegal aliens have crossed the U.S. border in the one year and a half since Biden took office, about the equivalent of the entire population of Ireland.