Illegal Immigration’s Impact On Education Costs Texas $7.87 Billion Annually



Illegal immigration costs the Texas big time.

One of the biggest costs is education, which comes in at almost $8 billion annually.

This is $8 billion that could go towards reducing class sizes or buying better equipment for US citizen students—it could even go towards fixing our roads, or just come back to Texans in terms of tax breaks.

All of these options are better than using billions of dollars to subsidize the education of Central Americans and Mexicans (who constitute the vast majority of illegal immigrants in Texas, and America as a whole).

But most importantly, crowded, multi-lingual classrooms, hurt American students, who get less instructional time, and are forced into disruptive classrooms—it’s our kids that suffer.

Let’s break it down and look at the numbers in specific terms.

Calculating the Cost of Illegal Immigration on Texas’ Public Education System

Right now there are 509,000 anchor babies (children born to foreign parents on US soil, specifically so the parents can avoid deportation), and 79,000 illegal immigrants who are under the age of majority in Texas.

Therefore, there are a total of 588,000 children presumably enrolled in Texas’ public education system, that are only here because of illegal immigration, and the government’s inability, or unwillingness, to enforce federal immigration law.

This is a large proportion of Texas’ overall student body.

In fact, total public school enrollment in the state was only 5,299,728 in 2016 (247,389 were enrolled in private charter schools)—this means that roughly 1 in 9 (11.1%) students enrolled in Texas’ public education system is there solely because of illegal immigration.

In terms of cost: according to Texas’s state budget, $61 billion was spent on K-12 public schools in the 2016 fiscal year.

And given that 11.1% of student are in Texas because of illegal immigration, this means that illegal immigration costs Texas $6.77 billion annually in educational costs.

Additionally, many of these children don’t speak English at home, and therefore need supplemental English instruction.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that for 2014, ESL lessons cost Texan taxpayers $1.1 billion.

Ignoring the inevitable increases in costs from year to year, this means educating illegal immigrants and anchor babies costs Texas at least $7.87 billion a year—probably more.

And don’t forget, this leaves out post-secondary education grants, pre-K education, and other financial assistance given to undocumented students and children of illegal immigrants.

The costs of illegal immigration are simply unsustainable—and don’t forget, education is just one portion of the total costs.

Illegal immigration, as a whole, costs Texas at least $12 billion annually.

But as bad as they are, Texas can count itself lucky that it’s not California, where 1 in 5 students are in the state because of illegal immigration.