Illegal Immigration s Terrifying Cost | City Journal
The northward flight of migrants has changed the immigration conversation. New York City was being destroyed by the migrant crisis, warned Mayor Eric Adams. He complained that President Biden had failed the city and demanded federal aid to ease the crisis. Adams has tried to offload some arriving immigrants to suburban New York communities. A Democratic governor, Colorado s Jared Polis, ignited his own controversy early in 2023 when he joined Republicans in transporting migrants to out-of-state cities, including Democrat-run New York and Chicago, after Denver declared a state of emergency because of an illegal immigrant influx.
Even if the southern border were completely secured, the costs of the massive movement of migrants into the U.S. over the last few years will reverberate for decades on city and state budgets. That price will include not merely the short-term burden of housing and feeding asylum seekers, but the longer-term expenditures of providing the newcomers with basic services like health care and education. Just how much these undocumented migrants will contribute, in turn, to America s economy, given that many are largely unskilled and poorly educated, remains to be seen though it s unlikely to be enough to help balance municipal and state books anytime soon. Meantime, Congress and the White House neglect sensible reforms to the legal immigration system that would open doors to the skilled workers our economy needs.
Steve Malanga.