Analysis: Over 15.5M Illegal Aliens in U.S. Costs Taxpayers $150B Annually

migrants arrive
ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images

More than 15.5 million illegal aliens live in the United States today, costing American taxpayers over $150 billion annually, analysis from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates.

The FAIR analysis estimates that taxpayers pay some $182 billion in annual costs for illegal aliens at the federal, state, and local levels. That cost is only minimally made up by illegal aliens contributing $32 billion to the economy, making the annual net cost more than $150 billion.

Put another way, illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children are costing each taxpayer nearly $1,200 every year.

Chart via Federation for American Immigration Reform

Most significantly, the cost of illegal immigration has skyrocketed since 2017, when the annual cost was estimated to be $116 billion. Likewise, since only last year, the cost has increased by $7 billion.

“… in just 5 years, the cost of illegal immigration has increased by nearly $35 billion,” the FAIR analysis states. ” This rapid increase is a consequence of the ongoing border crisis and a lack of effective immigration enforcement.”

The booming cost of illegal immigration to taxpayers comes as President Joe Biden’s administration has implemented an expansive Catch and Release network which includes a parole pipeline that provides border crossers and illegal aliens with work permits once they are released into the U.S. interior.

The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project revealed that a multitude of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), working with the Biden administration, have sent tens of thousands of border crossers and illegal aliens to all 50 states.

From February 2021 to January 2023, the Biden administration released nearly two million border crossers and illegal aliens into American communities.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.

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