Defenders of illegal aliens entering the United States often point to their paying taxes and performing jobs that native-born Americans don’t want to do.

What they fail to mention are the costs of maintaining millions of unskilled and semi-literate (at best) men, women and children for decades on end.

Fortunately, James Reinl, social affairs correspondent at the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, has taken the time to bring these truths to light. 

This occurred in a September 16 article headlined:

“America’s $78B Bill for Teaching Schoolkids With Poor English is Rising by BILLIONS in Biden-era Immigration Surge, Study Says, and 76,000 New Language Instructors Are a Tall Order in a Teacher Shortage.”

Among its findings: 

• One million public school students—ranging from kindergarten to high school—need special training in speaking and writing English.
• It costs $78 billion each year to educate them.
• Texas, California, Florida and New York are among the states most burdened with such students.
• Only three percent of these students are proficient in English when they graduate from high school.
• These costs are raised by billions owing to an unceasing tide of illegal alien children at the southern border.

These alarming statistics were produced by a study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). 

The 5.1 million students lacking English language skills need help in all their classes. As a result, it costs 15 to 20 percent more to educate them than American-born students who grow up learning English. 

Illegal alien climbing over the border fence in Brownsville, Texas

A well-known joke illustrates the frustrations English-as-a-second-language teachers face:

A teacher asks her class: “All right, who can tell me the difference between ‘select’ and ‘choose’?” A Hispanic student raises his hand and, being called on, replies, ‘Uh, ‘select,’ like that means when you pick something, man. And ‘choose’ is what Puerto Ricans wear on their feet.”

With the United States facing a severe teacher shortage, some states have lowered their hiring rules to recruit teachers with only a high school diploma.

In 2020, the 5.1 million illegal alien students in public schools cost American taxpayers $78 billion—an $18.8 billion jump from the cost in 2016.

Of those students, 1.15 million were in California, costing the state $19.5 billion. One million more lived in Texas, costing that state $11.4 billion. And 278,000 lived in Florida, at a cost of $3.1 billion.

Only 370,000 teachers nationwide are trained to teach them, and 76,000 more will be needed during the next five years. 

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, almost 200,000 immigrants were intercepted crossing the southern border in July. Many of them are entitled to claim asylum, and all children in the United States have a right to an education—even if they arrived here illegally.

Illegal aliens rounded up by ICE

Immigration remains a highly divisive issue among Americans. “Red” Republican states want to close borders. “Blue” Democratic states are more open to newcomers.

Yet even famously liberal enclaves of support for illegal aliens like New York are beginning to have second thoughts about taking in unlimited numbers of uninvited foreigners.

On October 7, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in response to the city’s migrant crisis, which he says will cost the city $1 billion this fiscal year. 

Eric Adams

“We now have a situation where more people are arriving in New York City than we can immediately accommodate, including families with babies and young children,” Adams said.

“Once the asylum seekers from today’s buses are provided shelter, we would surpass the highest number of people in recorded history in our city’s shelter system.”

Behind this unwanted influx lies Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

By the first week of October, Texas had spent more than $18 million busing illegal aliens found in Texas to famously liberal supporters of illegal immigration: Washington D.C., New York City, and Chicago.

Abbott announced the program in April as his response to the Biden administration’s immigration policies. 

Greg Abbott

New York City now has more than 61,000 people in its shelter system. Thousands of these are American citizens who are homeless. They are competing for assistance with illegal aliens who were bused to New York City from the southern border since April of this year.

Behind this huge surge in illegal aliens and their continuing drain on America’s schools, housing and hospitals (among other facilities) lie three Communist-ruled countries: Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

Rising levels of repression, food shortages and economic stability are motivating Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans to enter the United States. And assisting them in this effort is the longtime policy of the United States government to automatically accept those leaving Communist countries as refugees.

At some point, the United States must face the economic and social absurdity of allowing some cities and states to provide sanctuary to every illegal alien who appears.

Even Eric Adams, while emphasizing that while New York City remains a sanctuary city, it cannot cope with such an overwhelming influx of migrants:

“We are not telling anyone that New York can accommodate every migrant in the city. We’re not encouraging people to send eight, nine buses a day….We’re saying that as a sanctuary city with right to shelter, we’re going to fulfill that obligation. That’s what we’re doing.”

At some point, America must stop allowing itself to be a dumping-ground for other countries’ unwanteds.