The White House says immigration policies backed by the Democratic Socialists of America would cost American taxpayers up to $613 billion over the next decade.
The number comes from a Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) report detailed Thursday, which puts the ten-year range at $440 billion to $613 billion. To get there, the council assigned every illegal immigrant a lifetime net fiscal cost of $166,716. Run across the illegal alien population already in the country, that works out to between $1.4 trillion and $1.9 trillion.
Fox News measured that per-person figure against the price of a degree, pointing to College Board data that puts a four-year in-state public education, room and board included, at roughly $124,000.
Most of the projected cost is benefits. Opening food stamps, federal housing assistance and Medicaid to illegal aliens who would be legalized under a mass amnesty would add $361 billion to $475 billion over ten years. Medicaid alone accounts for as much as $40 billion a year, with food stamps adding $3.6 billion to $4.7 billion annually and housing assistance another $2.3 billion to $3 billion.
The council estimates that unwinding the current crackdown would wipe out $227 billion to $287 billion in projected taxpayer savings. Subtract what Washington would no longer spend on enforcement, and the net ten-year cost lands between $79 billion and $139 billion.
The same report prices out eight policy pillars the administration attributes to the DSA, including Medicare for All, universal rent control, the Green New Deal, a 32-hour workweek, and a billionaire wealth tax. Added up, the council puts the net cost at roughly $49 trillion over ten years, or about $355,000 per American household. Seven of the eight could be scored against the federal budget. The eighth, abolishing the police and the prison system, was measured through its effect on crime instead.
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital that President Donald Trump had given ICE the resources to deport criminal illegal aliens, and that radical Democrats now want the border reopened and amnesty extended to the illegal aliens they released.
The administration says it has gone 16 consecutive months without releasing illegal immigrants at the southern border.
The report is landing less than three weeks out from the midterms, with socialist candidates on ballots around the country, including Colorado’s First Congressional District. Fox News Digital said it contacted the DSA for comment on the costs tied to its immigration platform.