As we hear the cry from many Americans about how unaffordable America is, we need to ask ourselves how this came about. Well, I would suggest that opening our borders and allowing 10 or 15 million illegal aliens to migrate and scatter to every congressional district in the country has caused a serious strain on our wages, our economy, and especially our housing market. It has also brought us higher taxes, crowded emergency rooms, overcrowded classrooms, and higher crime rates in our communities.
When we look back even to 2022, we find that illegal border crossings have cost a city like Chicago over $4.5 billion or about $930 per household. California is in a much worse situation with this crisis costing them almost $22 billion in education, healthcare, welfare, and let’s not forget the cost of criminal activity.
Illegal immigration impacts the entire U.S. economy, from suppressed wages for blue-collar workers to rising costs for taxpayers. According to FAIR (The Federation for American Immigration Reform), this net cost in 2023 was an estimated $182 billion, which was partially offset by $31 billion paid in taxes by 15 million illegals. Migrants in the U.S. sent home $700 billion in 2024, which is all money that actually leaves the U.S. economy. What are we doing to stop this exodus of our wealth? The answer is nothing, but President Trump has suggested that we tax that money being sent out of the U.S., where we would at least recover some of that wealth. The five countries receiving the largest inflows of this money were India, Mexico, China, the Philippines, and Pakistan.
It is not just about the money siphoned from our economy, it is the increased criminal activity by Illegals, which has soared in the past 4 years and allowed Mexican drug cartels, many of whom are on the terrorist watch list, to cross our borders. Tens of thousands of Americans have died because of the fentanyl brought into the U.S., and it is not just from Mexico, as Canada has also been used extensively to traffic drugs into the U.S. We have been a country under siege during Biden’s term in office, and it has significantly hurt those families in the middle and lower economic spectrums.
Trump has stopped the illegals from entering, but getting those who are already here back to where they came from is a whole different story. It seems that just about every federal district judge who was appointed by a democrat president is out to stop Trump from deporting these illegals, making his job that much harder. The Blue Sanctuary Cities are the most resistant to the removal of these migrants while allowing criminal chaos to prevail in once law-abiding communities. When you think that between 2021 and 2024, 22,000 illegal aliens were released from sanctuary city jails without notification to ICE. One would think that after the tragic death of Laken Riley and other unfortunate victims of illegal criminals that the politicians who instituted these sanctuary policies would see the error of their ways, but unfortunately, they haven’t and continue to harbor these criminals.
While Idaho is not a sanctuary state, we do have what some would consider a sanctuary city in our state capital, with the illustrious Liberal Mayor McLean at the helm. Most Idahoans don’t realize how many illegals are actually in our state, but I assure you, there are many more than the estimated 100,000 that the press talks about. With our huge agricultural enterprises in our state, the need for low-cost manual labor is critical to those in the Ag business. While many of these workers are here legally, there are many who are not. Unfortunately, we are as much a border state as any other in the U.S. Neither you nor I will ever know the truth about the number of illegals in Idaho until we force the employers of these illegals to use e-verify, which, I assure yo,u most of them don’t. I hear Idahoans complaining about the high cost of housing, food, gas, and just about anything you can think of, but I don’t hear the battle cry to send the illegals back to the countries they came from.
The estimated economic cost of illegals to the state of Idaho is a little over $300 million, excluding federal costs. The Idaho Freedom Foundation, in their PORK report 2024, made mention of Idaho helping to fund the illegal immigration crisis, but few Idahoans would know about these facts. It seems that our governor and legislators talk tough on immigration, but when it comes right down to it, they do little or nothing to control it. From 2020 through 2024, Idaho spent $45 million on handouts for illegal immigrants. Most of these costs were for Prenatal care, post-natal care, immunizations, and treatment for communicable diseases, including sexually transmitted ones. It is estimated that Idaho will spend another 10.9 million of our tax dollars during the 2025 fiscal year, and as long as these benefits continue, illegal immigrants will continue to migrate to our state. Did someone say “We Have a Budget Shortfall”?
According to the Idaho Freedom Foundation, our state is also quite generous with your tax dollars when it comes to refugee spending. How about 1.7 million spent on grants for refugees annually, which go to groups like the Jannus Agency for New Americans, a leftist organization that makes 70% of its money off government Grant programs. Included in these grant programs is the “Cultural Humility” training for medical providers and $300,000 to tell refugees where they could get government money. Refugees are also eligible for Refugee Medical Assistance, a Medicaid-like program that’s more generous than Medicaid for citizens. In fact, able-bodied, working-age refugees are allowed to earn up to 8% more than Idaho citizens, and they still qualify. Just last week, my wife and I were told by our Medicare insurance agent that our Advantage coverage was now being limited to one company in our county, down from 3 last year, with the nearest facility 100 miles away. Well, thank you, Governor Little and all of our RINO legislators, for keeping our medical providers in check.
This past week, Idaho’s Old State Saloon was offering free beer for anyone turning in an illegal to ICE, and they even made the national news. Ironically, Facebook, the Social Media company that curtailed posts by conservatives during the Biden administration, has deleted posts about this Saloon’s offer. Now, you would think that the owner of this saloon was doing the right thing for America. We even have many Idahoans who are quite happy to welcome any and all illegals to our state and were critical of this generous offer. I want to be perfectly clear that immigration has been very detrimental economically to most middle-income U.S. citizens who have borne the brunt of this invasion.
If you want to return to the Trump economy we had in his first term, then help our President get these invaders out of the U.S. and back to where they came from. You ask why housing is so difficult to find at a reasonable cost. The answer is 15 million immigrants living illegally in America. Why have wages for blue-collar workers dropped precipitously? We have 15 million illegal immigrants working in our country, taking blue-collar jobs. I could go on, but what is the point if you haven’t figured this problem out by now, you probably never will because you either don’t pay attention or are too busy to care about these 15 million illegals who invaded our country. Wake up, Idaho!
“We Get the Government We Deserve.”
One reply on “What is the Cost of Illegal Immigration?”
I get that you’re worried about the rising costs of housing, wages, and other stuff, but this article misses the mark by citing a bunch of exaggerated numbers from anti-immigration groups and ignoring what most honest research shows. The truth is that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than the native-born population, pay billions in taxes, fill important jobs (many that no one else wants to do), and have a net positive impact on the economy in the long run.
Th real reasons housing is so expensive are years of not building enough homes, too many rules and zoning laws, higher labor and material costs, and the damn interest rates. It’s not immigration. If you want to argue about the cultural impacts of immigration, you might have a stronger argument, but your numbers just don’t add up here.