(June 22, 2023, Washington, D.C.) — An analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) of the most recent Census Bureau data reveals that at least 16.8 million illegal aliens now reside in the United States. This figure represents an increase of 1.3 million just since the beginning of 2022, and 2.3 million since President Biden took office in January 2021.
Along with the sharp increase in the illegal alien population comes sharp increases in costs to American taxpayers. The unprecedented rate of influx of new illegal aliens over the past year would add $12.6 billion annually to the costs of illegal immigration, bringing the cumulative net cost to at least $163 billion a year. At the current pace of illegal immigration, the annual net cost will exceed $200 billion by 2026.
Key Takeaways:
- The study is based on the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) and Current Population Survey (CPS) data, which traditionally undercounts the illegal population by about 30 percent because many illegal aliens are reluctant to respond to the surveys.
- The increase in the illegal alien population under President Biden is based on a sample that only tracks household addresses on file with the government. Even adjusting for undercount, it excludes the tens of thousands of unsheltered illegal migrants and a huge number of "gotaways" or other individuals who have been paroled into the U.S. and live under the radar. The full number is impossible to quantify but likely even higher.
- These 16.8 million illegal aliens now represent nearly one-third of the foreign-born residents of the United States.
- The additional $12.6 billion in costs annually is only a down payment. These costs are likely to grow as the migrants become more settled and increase their use of services like public education and health. Moreover, parolees are immediately eligible for a range of welfare benefits.
- At the current pace of illegal immigration, more new illegal aliens will have settled in the U.S. in the first three years of the Biden administration than in the entire decade of the 2010s.
"As just about every mayor and governor around the country – including those who preside over jurisdictions that have declared themselves sanctuaries for illegal aliens – has loudly proclaimed, the fiscal and social burdens of the Biden administration's sabotage of our immigration enforcement policies are unsustainable," observed Dan Stein, president of FAIR.
"The impact of these policies is causing social upheaval, setting states and 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. The report, How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the United States? 2023 Update, provides hard, albeit conservative, numbers that graphically illustrate the magnitude of this self-inflicted crisis," concluded Stein.
The full report, including detailed methodology, can be found here.
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