Congress Examines the Tangible and Intangible Costs of Illegal Immigration to American Schoolchildren

FAIR Take | June 2024

The issue of mass illegal immigration has risen to the top of Americans’ list of concerns, and for good reason: It impacts every aspect of life in this country. One of those areas — that often falls under the radar – is the impact it is having on American schoolchildren.

Last week, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing to examine both the tangible costs of mass illegal immigration on American schools and the intangible – but no less important – impact it is having on the quality of the education. “Wreaking havoc,” was the succinct and disturbing conclusion of Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.), who chairs the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.

Rep. Bean estimates that about 500,000 school-age children have entered the United States illegally since President Biden took office and, presumably, are in classrooms all across the country. But shockingly, even the U.S. Department of Education cannot provide a firm number. Under questioning at another hearing in early May, Secretary Miguel Cardona could not provide concrete numbers. Nor would Cardona say whether there is a point at which the Biden administration would agree that the numbers exceed our educational system’s ability to manage the influx.

Under a 1982 Supreme Court ruling, Plyler v. Doe, local schools are obligated to provide illegal alien children with a taxpayer-funded K-12 education. The cost is staggering. According to a 2022 FAIR report, the price tag for educating children of illegal aliens was $70.8 billion a year. The report examined data from 2020, which pre-dated the unprecedented surge of illegal immigration that began when President Biden took office in 2021. Based on Rep. Bean’s estimate of 500,000 new illegal aliens in U.S. public schools and the average per-child cost in a U.S. public school, the recent influx has added at least $9.7 billion in new costs to taxpayers.

The committee heard from educators from all across the United States, all of whom reported that their school systems cannot provide the resources necessary to meet the needs of the illegal alien children, much less those of their American classmates. School officials told the committee that they cannot even prepare for the new burdens that are being heaped upon them, as newly arriving illegal aliens often “show up overnight.” Predictably, educators from sanctuary jurisdictions complained about lack of federal funding, but money alone cannot magically produce new teachers, administrators and service providers, proficient in dozens of languages, to meet the needs of kids showing up from all across the globe.

Nowhere in the country is the impact being felt more acutely than in New York City, where the per-student cost for the school year just ending was about $38,000. The city had to accommodate 21,000 new migrant students when the school year began last September (a figure that continues to grow as new illegal aliens show up), adding about $800 million to the tab.

The recent congressional hearings focused not only on how much the influx of illegal alien students is costing American schools, but also on the impact it is having on the education of their classmates. For a variety of reasons, American students are lagging behind our economic competitors in educational attainment. In 2022, only 36 percent of American fourth-graders and 26 percent of eighth-graders were considered proficient in math. For reading comprehension proficiency the figures were 33 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

The problems of American education go much deeper than immigration, but the massive influx of illegal alien students who arrive with special educational needs can only exacerbate the situation. The impact of unchecked illegal immigration on our schools may not have the same headline-grabbing effect as crime or threats to national security, but in the long-term it could play an outsized role in determining whether we remain a prosperous and competitive nation.

When, as Rep. Bean asked, “Does there come a number…that you would say, ‘we just can’t take any more,’ it’s causing our kids to suffer?” our Secretary of Education and other administration officials should have an answer. They don’t, of course, which is why so many Americans are so deeply concerned.