Report Card on America’s Schools: Illegal Immigration Provides Lesson in Negative Numbers

FAIR:

With the traditional end of the school year, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has updated its study of the impact of illegal immigration on America’s public schools. Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red estimates that nationwide, the cost of educating the children of illegal aliens in the U.S. now runs an astonishing $28.6 billion.

The $28.6 billion figure does not include ancillary costs such as school-based nutrition programs that are provided to children from low-income families, or additional costs associated with the need to teach English to non-English speakers. Estimates based on Census Bureau data, suggest that there are about 1.5 million illegal alien children and an additional 2 million U.S.-born children of illegal aliens in K-12 classrooms across the country.

California, at $7.7 billion a year, leads the nation in expenditures for education of the children of illegal aliens, but five other states also have costs in excess of a billion dollars annually. “The exploding costs of educating the children of illegal aliens all across the country give a whole new meaning to ‘the little red schoolhouse,’” observed Dan Stein, President of FAIR. “America’s public education system is awash in red ink, and mass illegal immigration is a huge part of the growing gap between meeting our educational objectives and the resources available.”

According to a January report by the investment firm Bear Stearns, about one-third of all illegal aliens employed in the U.S. are working off-the-books, so no direct payroll taxes are being collected. Most of the rest are working for very low wages, meaning that tax withholding can cover only a small fraction of the cost of educating a single child, much less several children in the family.

Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red