Taxpayers have to pay nearly half a trillion dollars every year because the The Biden administration is not stopping migrants at the southern border, Republicans said in a report Monday.
The costs for education, health care, law enforcement and other expenses resulting from millions of additional migrants amount to as much as $451 billion a year, the House study said.
The 49-page report comes as Republicans in the House of Representatives are pushing for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for allegedly failing to stem the record number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border , to limit.
“Every day, millions of American taxpayer dollars are spent on costs directly related to illegal immigration and the unprecedented crisis at the Southwest border fueled by Mayorkas’ policies,” the report said.
Migrants stage a protest on their way to the US, where Republicans say they are a costly drain on resources
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is facing impeachment over the border crisis
“The massive illegal immigration, accelerated by Mayorkas’ open borders policies, now represents enormous costs to both the federal and state governments, as well as to the pocketbooks of private citizens and businesses.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has seen record numbers of migrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, a trend fueled by more people fleeing political chaos in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Since Biden took office in 2021, U.S. border agents have made more than five million arrests of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally — that is, not through a controlled border station.
Many seek asylum at the border and travel north in search of work in sanctuary cities like New York City, Washington, D.C. and Chicago, which are reeling from spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the newcomers.
Amid chaotic scenes of packed buses arriving from the border and migrants sleeping outside shelters, New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said earlier this fall that the influx “will destroy” the city.
Hundreds of migrants march in a caravan in southern Mexico, many heading for the US
For non-legal immigrants alone, the cost of Medicaid has skyrocketed over the past decade
The document, authorized by Mark Green, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, brings together reports from these cities with migration cost estimates from think tanks and other public sources.
It includes the $451 billion cost estimate from the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-wing think tank that advocates sharply reducing human flows into the US, which was calculated by researcher Andrew Arthur in May.
It also includes another estimate, released in March by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), another research group, that taxpayers spend at least $151 billion annually to cover the costs of illegal immigration.
According to FAIR, U.S. federal and state governments spend $182 billion annually to provide services and benefits to non-legal aliens and their dependents.
That figure is only partially offset by the $31 billion in taxes collected by the estimated 15.5 million non-legal aliens living in the U.S., said Dan Stein, the group’s president.
Some 3.8 million migrants have entered the country since Biden took office in 2021, FAIR says. Nearly half of them sneaked into the country illegally and were never caught, it is claimed.
The House of Representatives will vote Monday on whether to file or block Republican charges against Mayorkas for allegedly failing in his duty to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mark Green, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, says American taxpayers are the real victims of uncontrolled migration
The increase in illegal migration means that federal departments and border states must spend much more on security
The articles of impeachment, introduced Thursday by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, allege Mayorkas violated his oath of office by failing to close the border.
The impeachment comes after months of threats from Republicans, who criticize the Biden administration for rolling back harsh measures on migrants and asylum seekers put in place under former President Donald Trump, a Republican.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives appears likely to impeach Mayorkas, but he will almost certainly be found innocent after a trial in the Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority.
The department has previously blasted Republicans for “their reckless impeachment charades and attacks on law enforcement” when they should be helping reform the immigration system.
Both Biden and Trump are seeking another term in 2024, with Trump being the leading candidate for the Republican nomination.
Should he win, Trump reportedly plans a widespread expansion of his first administration’s hardline immigration policies, including rounding up undocumented immigrants in detention camps and deporting them.