Biden’s border policy cost states billions

Christopher Jacobs writes for the Federalist about the price tag associated with former President Joe Biden’s border policy.

A recent report attempted to quantify the real costs the Biden administration’s deregulated border had on state and local governments.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the surge in illegal migration cost governments billions of dollars in 2023, which illustrates the real-world impact of the previous administration’s actions — or inactions. The report also exhorted Congress to provide adequate resources for border security, so that the chaos of the past four years can never happen again.

The CBO report looked at the impact of the Biden-era migration surge among “other foreign nationals.” This immigration category includes those who entered the United States unlawfully; so-called “overstays,” who entered the country lawfully but did not exit when their visa expired; parolees permitted entrance despite not falling into another immigration category; and those awaiting immigration proceedings in court. The budget office estimated that, by the end of 2023, the “other foreign national” population had increased by a net of 4.3 million since the Biden administration took office in 2021.

CBO believes that, of those 4.3 million, “about a quarter,” or roughly 1.1 million, “were qualified aliens upon arrival.” That term has particular relevance because the 1996 welfare reform law restricted eligibility for federal programs to “qualified aliens” who have served a five-year waiting period. However, CBO also notes that “about half,” or over 500,000, “of those qualified aliens” arriving during the surge “were exempt from the five-year waiting period,” and therefore could immediately receive taxpayer-funded benefits.

The report examined both the direct and indirect effects of the migration surge, the latter of which takes into consideration second-tier impacts. For instance, direct effects include spending on services to house, feed, educate, or detain migrants. Indirect effects, on the other hand, include things such as an increase in property tax revenue because migrants’ demand for shelter raises housing prices, or a surge in the school-age population, necessitating the construction of new schools.

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