No wonder illegal immigrants are flocking to America in droves. They are getting billions a year in benefits that most Americans couldn't afford if they wanted to. Activist Pamela Geller recently cited a New York Times report that found the average American would have to make $300,000 a year to afford all the benefits given to illegal aliens. That includes healthcare, education, transportation, housing, phones, legal aid, free tuition, etc. Steven Camarota at the Center for Immigration Studies has done similar research. "We've estimated that if you just look at welfare programs, excluding other types of services, you're looking at more than 40-billion dollars a year that illegal immigrants are getting," he tells KTRH.
Camarota's research has previously found a majority of illegal immigrant households in the U.S. utilize welfare or public assistance programs. The biggest is public education. "There are about four million children of illegal immigrants in public schools, though many of them are U.S. born, admittedly," he says. "That's costing at a minimum 70-billion dollars a year."
While public education and healthcare are the biggest expenses associated with illegals, all of the other benefits add up quickly as well. "If you provide illegal immigrants with housing, food, legal services, and healthcare, that's an immediate cost...and the money has to come from somewhere," says Camarota.
That somewhere is the pockets of American citizens. "Every dollar any city spends on housing and healthcare, food and other assistance to illegal immigrants, is money they don't have to spend on their own people...typically the low-income people who need that help the most," says Camarota.