The eye-watering financial cost of the migrant crisis hit $150 billion last year and is causing devastating consequences for residents of hard-hit cities struggling to cope with the influx, The Post has learned.
Of that figure, calculated by Washington DC-based non-profit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), $67 billion came from the federal government, but the majority of the burden was shouldered by states and local governments.
That has left huge holes in city budgets, meaning cutbacks for regular US citizens, including:
Denver City Council has to cut $45 million from its budget, including $8.4m from it Police Department and $2.5m from the Fire Department to pay an estimated $90m bill for migrants
New York City is spending $2.3 billion in costs for housing migrants alone in 2023 and 2024, resulting in city agencies having to cut costs by 5%.
In South Portland, Maine, property taxes have increased to pay for the migrant crisis and the mayor has advised elderly residents to re-mortgage their houses to pay them
Chicago faces a $1 billion budget gap, partly over migrant services, which it is now scrambling to make up.
FAIR estimates there were at least 15.5 million “illegal alien residents” in the country at the beginning of 2022, with federal funding amounting to $3,187 per migrant per year, an increase of 45% since their last survey in 2017.
Of the federal government’s $67 billion spent in 2023, more than $6.6 billion was earmarked for education and over $25 billion was doled out in medical costs. Federal welfare programs ate up $11.5 billion and law enforcement costs were $23.1 billion, according to the 91-page “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers 2023” report from FAIR.
In New York City more than 210,000 migrants have traveled to the city since the spring of 2022. As The Post has reported, under the sanctuary city’s “right to shelter” policy 150 hotels are currently providing food and rooms for the migrants, who receive between 30 and 60 days of free housing with laundry facilities and help with childcare.
New York City did receive aid through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which started a Shelter and Services Program in fiscal 2023 to address the migrant surge.
The agency allocated $640 million in fiscal 2024 for migrants, of which $81m went to New York City, by far the largest share given to any one place.
Another $23 million of the FEMA cash was given to authorities and non-governmental organizations in Denver — however, it falls far short of the amount required.
Local residents in the city, 90 miles outside Indianapolis, say they no longer feel safe in the community and their children are being muscled out of the public schools by recent arrivals who do not speak English and need a great deal of help from teachers.
However, some critics object to taxpayer money allocated to FEMA being used for non-citizens at all, noting how most of it has been given to sanctuary jurisdictions where officials do not cooperate with federal authorities to enforce immigration laws.
“What makes this Biden-Harris botched response unique—and particularly outrageous—is that the same administration claiming it doesn’t have enough money to support suffering Americans appropriated $1.6 billion dollars in FEMA funds to assist illegal aliens since October 2021,” said Kevin Roberts, Heritage Fund president in an article on the conservative think tank’s website.
Obey
Article URL : https://nypost.com/2024/10/23/us-news/migrant-crisis-cost-150bn-in-2023-local-towns-cutting-costs-to-cope/?