The financial cost of the migrant crisis hit $150 billion last year and is causing devastating consequences for residents of hard-hit cities struggling to cope with the influx, The Post has learned.
Of that figure, calculated by Washington DC-based non-profit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), $67 billion came from the federal government, but the majority of the burden was shouldered by states and local governments.
That has left huge holes in city budgets, meaning cutbacks for regular US citizens, including:
- Denver City Council has to cut $45 millionfrom its budget, including $8.4m from it Police Department and $2.5m from the Fire Department to pay an estimated $90m bill for migrants.
- New York City is spending $2.3 billion in costs for housing migrants alone in 2023 and 2024, resulting in city agencies having to cut costs by 5%.
- In South Portland, Maine, property taxes have increased to pay for the migrant crisis and the mayor has advised elderly residents to re-mortgage their houses to pay them. — Source
- Chicago faces a $1 billion budget gap, partly over migrant services, which it is now scrambling to make up.
In New York City more than 210,000 migrants have traveled to the city since the spring of 2022. As The Post has reported, under the sanctuary city’s “right to shelter” policy 150 hotels are currently providing food and rooms for the migrants, who receive between 30 and 60 days of free housing with laundry facilities and help with childcare.
The overall costs to house asylum seekers per night is $352 and spending for 2023 and 2024 is set to surpass a staggering $2.3 billion.
To pay for it Mayor Eric Adams announced budget cuts at the end of 2023 of 5% across all city agencies. — Source
That included certain cuts to New York’s Police and Fire Department, which were walked back three months later, as well as $58 million cut from NYC library funding, $53 million to city cultural institutions and millions taken from early childhood programs.
Funding for some of those ventures is expected to be restored in 2025.
New York City did receive aid through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which started a Shelter and Services Program in fiscal 2023 to address the migrant surge.
The agency allocated $640 million in fiscal 2024 for migrants, of which $81m went to New York City, by far the largest share given to any one place.
Another $23 million of the FEMA cash was given to authorities and non-governmental organizations in Denver — however, it falls far short of the amount required.
Denver has already spent $70 million on caring for those migrants and introduced an initiative to spend another $90 million in April this year, according to local reports. — NBC
The Denver Asylum Seekers Program provides up to six months of rent free housing, assistance with food and legal issues, such as asylum applications and work permits.
The city, which rented out several hotels to deal with the surge of migrants, also works with non-profits to provide classes in English language, financial literacy and workers’ rights, according to reports. The city project $51.7 million in migrant housing costs alone in 2024, with another $9.7 million allocated to workforce training.
In Chicago, mayor Brandon Johnson announced in August the city has a $982m projected budget gap for 2025. Between 2022 and 2024 the city has spent over $400 million on migrants, according to NBC, with $141m spent this year, according to local site WTTW. The issue has been particularly contentious among residents and the city has since announced that by next year it will shut down its migrant shelter program and wrap it into a more “cost-effective” approach, rolling into its homelessness program.
In South Portland, Maine, a city of 27,000 residents which saw an influx of 1,000 migrants last year, Mayor Misha Pride suggested elderly residents who could not afford steep property tax increases take out a reverse mortgage — a loan that allows homeowners to borrow against the equity in their property.
The reverse mortgage suggestion came at the same time that the city voted to allocate $1.9 million in its 2025 budget for migrants. The cash is slated for “General Assistance Vouchers” for asylum seekers’ rent, food and prescription drugs.
That’s ten times more than the $100,000 the City Council approved for their Senior Property Tax Relief Fund, according to reports.
“Food costs have increased and Asylum Seekers rely on General Assistance for food assistance,” the city’s budget reads, in part justification for the outlay.
The city will receive some benefit from a FEMA grant of $5.4 million which was given out in August to the United Way of Southern Maine and Catholic Charities to help resettle migrants in the area.
Other small cities aren’t as lucky and are begging for federal funds after they have been overwhelmed with migrants. In Logansport, Indiana, a city of 18,000 residents, nearly 2,000 migrants — most of them unaccompanied minors — have put a strain on local schools.
Haitian migrant students have swelled from 14 in 2021 to 207 this year, according to reports.
Local residents in the city, 90 miles outside Indianapolis, say they no longer feel safe in the community and their children are being muscled out of the public schools by recent arrivals who do not speak English and need a great deal of help from teachers.
“What makes this Biden-Harris botched response unique—and particularly outrageous—is that the same administration claiming it doesn’t have enough money to support suffering Americans appropriated $1.6 billion dollars in FEMA funds to assist illegal aliens since October 2021,” said Kevin Roberts, Heritage Fund president in an article on the conservative think tank’s website. — Source
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