OPINION:
President Biden has transformed America’s southern border into a humanitarian catastrophe and a national security nightmare. This bloody, deadly mess is a clear and present danger to this republic.
It is also a massive fiscal threat. Mr. Biden’s obliteration of the border is evaporating federal, state and local coffers.
Precise figures on anything illegal are, by definition, elusive. Nonetheless, the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s report “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers 2023” estimates that taxpayers bleed $182.1 billion in annual benefits to illegal aliens. This includes $66.4 billion in federal spending and $115.7 billion in state and local outlays to those who have entered the country illegally.
“No sweat!” the apologists for illegal aliens argue. “They work hard, pay taxes and pull their own weight.”
If only.
“Taxes paid by illegal aliens only cover around 17.2% of the costs they create for American citizens,” FAIR calculates. This includes $16.2 billion in federal taxes and $15.2 billion in state and local levies. These $31.4 billion still stick U.S. citizens with 82.8% of the illegals’ $150.7 billion annual tab.
Extrapolating this figure suggests that since Mr. Biden took control three years ago, these foreign invaders have siphoned some $452 billion from the U.S. Treasury, state houses and city halls across the country. Specifically:
Federal
• Welfare: $11.6 billion.
• Medical: $23.1 billion.
• Law enforcement/justice: $25.1 billion.
• Education: $6.6 billion.
State and local
• Welfare: $2 billion.
• Medical: $18.6 billion.
• Law enforcement/justice: $21.8 billion.
• Education: $73.3 billion.
Every penny of this largesse is avoidable. Sealing the southern border and requiring that immigrants present visas would halt this onslaught. The fact that illegal alien encounters have soared 336% under Mr. Biden vs. former President Donald Trump pins this evil on No-Borders Biden and the Democrats.
“The impact of these policies is causing social upheaval, setting states against other states, big cities against surrounding communities, overwhelming school districts and social service providers, as economic migrants from all across the globe pour across our borders,” said FAIR President Dan Stein.
This foreign menace plagues U.S. cities and states:
• Due to the 37,000 illegals who have swamped Denver since December, Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston said Wednesday that his city faces “a fiscal crisis unlike anything we have seen in the last 25 years.” He expects illegals to cost Denver $180 million this year. Denver Health Hospital is in critical condition because 8,000 illegals have paid nothing for their 20,000 visits.
• Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told Fox Business Network anchor Stuart Varney on Jan. 4: “Since Joe Biden has taken office, Texas taxpayers have borne the brunt of about $10 billion in costs for Texas to do the federal government’s job to try to secure the border.”
• Some 160,000 illegals have flooded New York City since spring 2022. So, Democratic Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to slash spending across the board 5% for three years each. This 15% reduction in police, fire, sanitation, education, and everything else totaled $12.25 billion, to keep illegals clothed, fed, housed and taught. Hence, Mr. Adams canceled five Police Academy rookie classes.
Unexpectedly higher revenue let Mr. Adams pare these cuts to $10.6 billion. Regardless, New Yorkers anticipate deadlier streets, brighter infernos, dirtier sidewalks and dimmer students.
Mr. Adams detonated a raging bomb on Jan. 9 when he bused 1,900 illegals from a rain-soaked tent city to Brooklyn’s James Madison High School and banished its children to Zoom classes. This betrayal infuriated the largely Black, Hispanic and Democratic parents of Madison students.
Mr. Biden’s border-killing policies have lured 8.47 million illegal aliens into the hands of sadistic cartels and rape-happy human smugglers. He shines a green light on foreign criminals, spies and terrorists. On Mr. Biden’s watch, 312 of the latter have been nabbed at the border, versus 11 under Mr. Trump — up 2,736%. How many have slipped through? Who knows?
Meanwhile, Mr. Biden offers U.S. taxpayers two words: Drop dead.
• Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.
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