WASHINGTON, D.C. – Minnesota taxpayers are spending over $734 million a year on illegal immigrants according to a study released in September by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a Washington D.C. based nonprofit dedicated to studying immigration issues.
The report, “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers (2017)” states on a national basis, illegal immigration is costing U.S. taxpayers an astounding $134.9 billion a year.
FAIR defines “illegal alien” as anyone who entered the United States without authorization and anyone who unlawfully remains once his/her authorization has expired.
A detailed analysis of this report shows state and local expenditures for services provided to illegal aliens amounted to $88.9 billion while federal expenditures totaled $45.8 billion. Meanwhile, the study reports that only $19 billion was recouped by the government from illegal immigrants who paid taxes.
“Illegal immigration costs Americans billions of dollars each year,” the report states. “Illegal aliens are net consumers of taxpayer-funded services and the limited taxes paid by some segments of the illegal alien population are, in no way, significant enough to offset the growing financial burdens imposed on U.S. taxpayers by massive numbers of uninvited guests.”
In Minnesota, the cost per alien to state taxpayers is $4,885. The report estimates there are 150,434 illegal aliens and their children residing in Minnesota. The total cost of illegal aliens and their children to Minnesota taxpayers in 2017 is a staggering $734,890,769.
Nationally, more than 12.5 million illegal immigrants and their estimated 4.2 million U.S. citizen children benefit handsomely from the United States government. The report indicates that the biggest expenditure on the federal level is medical services ($17 billion) which includes uncompensated hospital costs, Medicaid births, Medicaid fraud and Medicaid benefits for children who are born in the United States to illegal immigrants.
The second largest federal expenditure is law enforcement and justice ($13 billion) which encompasses incarceration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations and an alien assistance program. Another $8 billion is spent on general government programs with another $5.8 billion spent on welfare which includes free school meals, food stamps and supplemental nutrition programs.
The largest expense on state and local governments is education, with an astounding $44.4 billion going primarily to K-12 public schools throughout the nation.
FAIR researchers found that taxpaying American are left footing the bill for public services used by illegal immigrants as many of the illegals obtain employment in the underground economy and avoid paying income tax.
The study details how employers pay illegal aliens “under-the-table” and do not deduct payroll taxes. Due to the lack of immigration status, illegal aliens are unlikely to report their income to the IRS and as a result, state, local and federal governments are not collecting enough taxes from illegal aliens to cover the costs of the services they consume.
The study estimates that illegal aliens pay just under $19 billion in combined state, local and federal taxes leaving the fiscal burden of illegal aliens on U.S. taxpayers at over $115 billion.
“Even in the absence of any complex studies, basic mathematics make it self evident that illegal aliens are a drain on the U.S. economy,” states the report.
