Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has signaled that funding for services for illegal immigrants is on the brink as it prepares to cut government spending.
Although the department is not an official branch of the government, it is expected to be given authority by President-elect Trump to audit and implement sweeping reforms within the agency.
DOGE criticized U.S. spending to fight illegal immigration in the X-Post, saying it was costing taxpayers $150.7 billion “in 2023 alone.”
DOGE estimates that, adjusting for inflation, U.S. spending on illegal immigration in a single year is comparable to government spending during the entirety of World War I ($334 billion) or the Apollo space program ($257 billion). , he pointed out, is significantly higher than that. Spending was on the Manhattan Project ($30 billion), the Panama Canal ($15.2 billion), and the Hoover Dam ($1 billion).
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President Trump announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the Department of Government Efficiency on November 12, 2024. (Getty Images)
Musk echoed this sentiment, writing on X: “The scale of spending on illegal immigration is mind-boggling!”
The data DOGE referenced comes from a 2023 study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR's latest report, released in March 2023, estimated that the net cost of illegal immigration, including federal, state, and local spending, is “at least” $150.7 billion, or $1,156 per taxpayer. This is an increase of nearly $35 billion from $116 billion in 2017.
FAIR said it arrived at this figure by subtracting “just under $32 billion in tax revenue paid by illegal aliens from the total negative economic impact of $182 billion due to illegal immigration.” The federal government spent $66 billion, and state and local spending was well over $115 billion, according to that estimate.
The U.S. government does not appear to have recent estimates of how much tax money is being spent on illegal immigration.
Jessica Baxter, head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, told Fox News Digital that the agency “has not conducted any recent work that addresses the federal government's overall cost estimates for immigration-related efforts.” .
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Migrants encountered in Arizona at the southern border. (U.S. Border Patrol)
“Although some reports provide information on the costs associated with specific border security and immigration-related initiatives, such as estimates of the cost of incarcerating noncitizens, these do not provide overall estimates.” she said. “The two reports I'm referring to are from 2018 and 2011, so the data is a bit outdated. Our team is currently working on updating the 2018 report, but the work is It is in progress and no report is expected to be published anytime soon. ”
Julie Kirchner, FAIR's executive director, told Fox News Digital that the $150.7 billion figure is actually a “very conservative estimate” and is even higher at a time when the undocumented immigrant population continues to grow. He said it is likely.
”The population we cited in our study was 15.5 million, but we now estimate it to be over 16.8 million, and we are currently making other estimates for the illegal alien population, but we are sure it will be much higher. I think it will be. ” “So we know the costs are going to go up,” she explained.
He also said the 2023 study didn't even include state and local spending on immigrant protection. Although DOGE focuses primarily on the federal government, state and local spending, including education, health care and incarceration, accounts for the largest share of government spending on illegal immigrants, he said.
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Hundreds of asylum seekers line up outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City on June 6, 2023. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
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While exact numbers are difficult to come by at the local level, American cities are bearing much of the burden. New York City, the nation's largest city by population, estimates it will spend more than $12 billion by fiscal year 2025 as nearly 100,000 asylum seekers flood into the city and there is “no end in sight” I am doing it. Meanwhile, Chicago has spent $1 million on immigration services in the past two years, when it reportedly spent $400.
“More states are using state tax dollars to subsidize illegal immigration,” she says. ”What we're seeing is states and local residents being forced to shoulder all of these costs. ”
She said that once President Trump is re-elected, DOGE and his administration should immediately work to eliminate government health insurance for undocumented immigrants and close loopholes that allow undocumented immigrants to receive income taxes and child tax credits. I believe. She believes this will allow DOGE to save taxpayers across the country “billions of dollars every year.”
“There's a lot we can do,” she continued. “They are using our tax dollars to benefit illegal aliens and encourage more illegal immigration. This is madness. It's a crazy scenario where people are welcoming illegal activity and it needs to stop and we expect DOGE to do that. ”
