Cost estimates reported last summer by the Congressional Budget Office revealed the fiscal impact on American taxpayers following the Biden-era border crisis that languished between 2021 and 2024.
CBO concluded in its report that the federal government would spend $177 billion in benefits provided to illegal immigrants and their children who were admitted under former President Joe Biden.
Another $101 billion would be lost as a result of the economy for a grand total of $278 billion.
CBO further broke down the $278 billion in payouts between 2024 and 2034 by individual government aid programs, including $15 billion in food stamps, $59 billion for Obamacare premium tax credits, $13 billion for child nutrition programs, and $40 billion for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP.
Another $43 billion for the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, as well as $4 billion for the Supplemental Security Income, is also slated to be paid out, according to CBO.
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Trump took executive action late Wednesday "to ensure taxpayer resources are not used to incentivize or support illegal immigration" by denying federal money to illegal immigrants themselves, as well as states and localities that "support" or "assist" illegal immigration through sanctuary policies.
"The surge in illegal immigration, enabled by the previous Administration, is siphoning dollars and essential services from American citizens while state and local budgets grow increasingly strained," the executive order stated. "With this Executive Order, President Trump is ensuring taxpayer resources are used to protect the interests of American citizens, not illegal aliens."
House Border Security Caucus Co-Chairman, Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) applauded Trump for the move.
"Illegal aliens should have never received benefits in the first place! President Trump is putting Americans first and ending this madness. Long overdue!" Babin wrote in a post on X.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said Trump's action clawed back money that belonged to U.S. citizens.
"The money that pays for illegal immigrants' benefits didn't fall from Heaven. It came out of Americans' pockets," Kennedy wrote in a post on X. "Under Pres. Trump, America is DONE rewarding lawbreakers."
Trump's executive order also mandated improvements to how benefit applicants are verified for eligibility for federal benefits to ensure money is not sent to illegal immigrants.
Although illegal immigrants are typically ineligible for public benefits under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, immigrants admitted through parole are considered "qualified aliens" and are exempt.
Under Biden, his administration created a function within U.S. Customs and Border Protection's phone app for immigrants outside the country to either fly on a commercial plane into the country and be granted parole for two years or seek an appointment at a port of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border and seek parole.
Between both avenues, more than 740,000 immigrants were admitted. The creation of the immigration functions within the CBP app was intended to give immigrants a way to seek admission without illegally coming over the southern border between ports of entry, but Republicans have criticized it as a backdoor to admit hundreds of thousands of people into the country in less than two years.
Trump rescinded the app's immigration functions on day one as president last month.
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The CBO report last summer found that although federal spending in response to illegal immigration would rack up high costs, the cost-benefit was far higher.
Approximately $1.175 trillion in increases to government revenue would come from the Biden border influx. When counted against the cost of payouts to illegal immigrants, it would still leave the government with $897 billion in financial gain.
One senior House Democrat, Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, said Trump's move would hurt how immigrants, regardless of legal status, were seen by Americans.
"Last night, Trump signed an executive order barring them from accessing many of these same programs. This order does nothing but villainize immigrants," Jayapal wrote in a statement on X Thursday.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council in Washington, said immigrants contribute more than their share to the U.S. government and economy.
"Undocumented immigrants pay nearly $100 billion in federal taxes each year, more than a third of which goes to programs they are ineligible for, like Social Security," Reichlin-Melnick wrote in a post to X late Wednesday. "They also build economic prosperity, which raises tax contributions as the economy -- and thus taxable income -- grows."
"CBO's projections present a deceptively optimistic assessment of the Biden-Harris Administration's open border policies," the House Budget Committee wrote in a press release following the release of the CBO analysis.
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"However, it is critical to note that this does not include the impact of discretionary costs and state and local costs associated with illegal immigration," the committee added.