President Joe Biden’s plan to house migrants in United States hotels is set to cost American taxpayers about $72,000 per border crosser awarded a room, analysis details.
This week, the Biden administration announced it awarded a Texas-based nonprofit an $86 million contract to pay for hotel rooms in the U.S. for border crossers. The contract is for six months and will provide rooms to about 1,200 migrant families.
The hotel rooms will be in Arizona and Texas near the southern border and serve as welcoming centers for border crossers whom the Biden administration hopes to quickly release into the U.S. interior.
Analysis by former federal immigration judge Andrew Arthur, a fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, finds the cost to taxpayers is expensive.
Arthur writes:
On March 20, Axios reported that the Biden administration has entered into a six-month contract worth $86 million to house 1,200 migrant family members near the Southwest border in Texas and Arizona. That works out to $71,666.67 per migrant, paid by your tax dollars, meaning that you are now a co-conspirator to one of the largest smuggling schemes in history. [Emphasis added]
…
By the way, $71,666.67 divided by six months equals $392.69 per person per night. One night at the AAA-rated three-diamond Best Western Plus Laredo Inn & Suites for two adults and two children is $127.49 per night ($111 for AAA members), and includes a free breakfast, refrigerator, and microwave.
[Emphasis added]Were the president to want to house those 1,200 [family units] closer to his own personal residence near Wilmington, Del., the top-rated hotel there (according to Frommer’s, the site I generally use), the Courtyard Wilmington Downtown, is a bargain at $119 per night, again for two adults and two children. [Emphasis added]
In addition to the migrant hotel rooms scheme, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is spending $110 million for “eligible local nonprofit and governmental organizations and state governmental facilities that have aided, or will aid” border crossers apprehended and released into the U.S. interior.
Since February, Biden’s administration has released at least 23,400 border crossers into the U.S. interior, Breitbart News exclusively reported. For context, the totals indicate Biden has released a foreign population into the U.S. that is more than double the population of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas previously suggested border crossers receive testing for the Chinese coronavirus before their release, though the agency has yet to confirm any such testing and quarantine requirements.
Illegal immigration costs taxpayers $134 billion annually, the latest research finds.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.