The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Aliens on Floridians

FAIR’s 2010 study, “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers” estimated at nearly $5.5 billion the annual state and local fiscal costs borne by Florida taxpayers resulting from 950,000 illegal aliens and 186,000 of their U.S.-born children.

The estimated costs in this report exceeded the nearly $4 billion estimated cost  borne by Florida taxpayers in FAIR’s 2009 publication “The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Floridians” because the more recent study included additional expenditure areas.

The breakdown of the 2010 estimate by category is below ($millions):

K-12 education
English (LEP)
$559.10
Sub-Total
$3,339.20
Medicaid
$530.60
SCHIP+
$129.20
Justice
$578.90
Welfare+
$317.10
General
$567.60
Total
$5,462.60

Fla Costs

There are tax collections received by the state and local governments from the illegal aliens and their employers that offset some of that estimated fiscal cost. The study puts those estimated tax receipts (in $millions) as follows:

Property tax
$100.70
Sales tax
$160.10
Total
$260.70

This leaves the net fiscal burden on Florida taxpayers at about $5.2 billion per year – not including the share of their federal taxes that go for programs used by illegal aliens.

The full study is on FAIR’s website at www.fairus.org