The staggering fiscal cost of the migrant crisis reached $150 billion last year, with a devastating impact on residents of hard-hit cities struggling to cope with the influx, The Post has found.
Of that amount, calculated by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), $67 billion comes from the federal government, but the bulk of the burden is borne by states and local governments.
This will leave a huge hole in the city’s budget and reduce the budgets of ordinary American citizens, including:
The Denver City Council will have to cut $45 million from its budget, including $8.4 million from the police department and $2.5 million from the fire department, to pay an estimated $90 million bill on immigrants. New York City will spend $2.3 billion on housing immigration alone in 2023 and 2024, forcing city officials to cut costs by 5%. In South Portland, Maine, property taxes have been raised to offset the immigration crisis, and the mayor has advised elderly residents to remortgage their homes to pay for them. Facing a $1 billion budget shortfall, it is currently scrambling to make amends.
FAIR estimates that there were at least 15.5 million “illegal aliens” in the country as of early 2022, and that federal funding amounted to $3,187 per immigrant per year, an increase of $4.5 million from the previous study in 2017. % increase.
Of the $67 billion the federal government spent in 2023, more than $6.6 billion went to education and more than $25 billion to health care. Federal welfare programs consumed $11.5 billion and law enforcement costs totaled $23.1 billion, according to FAIR’s 91-page “2023 Financial Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers” report.
They point out that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to immigration spending, as state and local spending is much higher.
But estimating the full cost per immigrant is difficult because states, cities, and counties have different approaches to immigrant relief. But the challenges faced by certain communities help illustrate just how disruptive this crisis is to the general public.
New York City has welcomed more than 210,000 immigrants to the city since spring 2022. As The Post reported, 150 hotels are currently offering meals and rooms to migrants under the sanctuary city’s “right to shelter” policy. We provide 30 and 60 days of complimentary housing with laundry facilities and child care assistance.
The total cost per night to house asylum seekers is $352, and spending in 2023 and 2024 is expected to exceed a staggering $2.3 billion.
To cover those costs, Mayor Eric Adams announced a 5% budget cut across city agencies at the end of 2023.
They included certain cuts to New York City’s police and fire departments, which were eliminated after three months, as well as $58 million cut from New York City Library grants and funding for the city’s cultural institutions. $53 million in cuts, and millions of dollars were cut from early childhood programs.
Funding for some of these ventures is expected to be restored in 2025.
New York City is receiving assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which launched a shelter and services program in fiscal year 2023 to deal with the migrant surge.
The agency allocated $640 million for immigration in fiscal year 2024, of which $81 million went to New York City, by far the largest share given to a single place.
An additional $23 million in FEMA cash has been donated to Denver officials and nongovernmental organizations, but that’s far from what’s needed.
The city of 715,000 has recorded the largest influx of immigrants after New York City, Chicago and San Diego, with 42,000 immigrants since December 2022, according to immigration data.
According to local reports, the city of Denver has already spent $70 million caring for these migrants and introduced an initiative in April to spend an additional $90 million.
Elected officials would have to cut Denver’s emergency services and police force to pay for it.
According to a report on the website, “Denver City Council faces $45 million in cut requests, including $17 million from public safety agencies such as the Denver Police Department ($8.4 million) and Denver Fire Department ($2.5 million). “It was.”
The Denver Asylum Seeker Program provides up to six months of rent-free housing, food, and assistance with legal issues such as asylum applications and work permits.
The city has leased several hotels to deal with the migrant surge and is also working with nonprofit organizations to offer classes in English, financial literacy and labor rights, according to the report. The city plans to spend $51.7 million on immigrant housing alone in 2024, with an additional $9.7 million earmarked for worker training.
Supporters of the 1,000-place asylum seeker program say it will allow immigrants to integrate more quickly into the local economy and workforce. The city estimates it will cost each immigrant $1,700.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced in August that the city has a $982 million budget shortfall in 2025. The city will spend more than $400 million on immigration from 2022 to 2024, according to NBC, and $141 million this year, according to local sites. Wow. The issue has been particularly contentious among residents, with the city announcing that by next year it will discontinue its immigrant shelter program and package it into a more “cost-effective” approach and incorporate it into its anti-homelessness program.
In South Portland, Maine, a city of 27,000 that saw an influx of 1,000 immigrants last year, Mayor Misha Pride is offering a massive increase in property taxes to older residents who can’t afford it, to help homeowners pay for their homes. I suggested that they take advantage of a reverse mortgage. capital of their property.
“I know it’s an ugly word,” he told the City Council in August. “But I’m just saying it’s kind of a last resort.” he said.
The reverse mortgage proposal comes at the same time the city voted to allocate $1.9 million to immigrants in its 2025 budget. The cash will be used to pay asylum seekers “general assistance vouchers” for rent, food and prescription drugs.
This is 10 times the $100,000 approved by the City Council for the Senior Property Tax Relief Fund, according to reports.
The city’s budget states that “food costs are rising and asylum seekers rely on General Assistance for food assistance,” which is part of the justification for the spending.
Pride, an attorney who is running for re-election, recanted his comments in a letter to the editor of the Portland Press Herald earlier this month.
“This was an inappropriate statement…I never intended to advocate it as a general approach,” he wrote.
In June 2023, the city signed a 12-month contract to house immigrants at the Howard Johnson Hotel.
The city will benefit in part from a $5.4 million FEMA grant awarded in August to United Way of Southern Maine and Catholic Charities to help resettle immigrants in the area. It will be.
Other small cities are not so lucky, begging for federal funding after being overwhelmed by immigrants. In Logansport, Indiana, a city of 18,000 people, nearly 2,000 immigrants, most of them unaccompanied minors, are straining local schools.
According to reports, the number of immigrant students from Haiti increased from 14 in 2021 to 207 this year.
Mayor Chris Martin recently told Indianapolis FOX 59, “The federal government has to step in and help a community our size.”
Local residents in the city, 90 miles from Indianapolis, no longer feel safe in the area, and their children are being forced out of public schools by recent arrivals who don’t speak English and require significant help from teachers. He says he is forced to do so.
However, some critics object to taxpayer funds allocated to FEMA being used at all for non-nationals, most of them in sanctuary jurisdictions where the agency does not cooperate with federal authorities enforcing immigration laws. It is pointed out that it is given.
“What makes this Biden-Harris failed response unique and especially outrageous is that since October 2021, an administration that claims there is not enough money to help struggling Americans “We’re appropriating $1.6 billion from FEMA funds,” Kevin said. In an article published on the conservative think tank’s website, Roberts, chairman of the Heritage Foundation, said:
