As estimated 16.8 million illegal aliens are now resident in the United States, representing an increase of 2.3 million compared to end-of-2020 estimates, with the illegal population growing by 16 percent under President Joe Biden.
The costs imposed on American taxpayers by illegal aliens and any U.S.-born children have also been estimated, coming in at around $150.6 billion per year. This is an increase of $35 billion on 2017 estimates, when the figure was put at $116 billion.
In contrast, American security assistance to Ukraine since the February 2022 invasion by Russia comes in at around $40 billion – give or take a few billion, depending on the accounting tricks deployed by the Pentagon.
Calculated by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) nonprofit, the estimates include anyone who lacks “legal status” in the United States, even if they are “lawfully present” – migrants subject to deferred enforced departure, for example. FAIR cautions that estimating the size of the illegal alien population is an “inexact science”, as “we do not know exactly how many people cross the border illegally and evade immigration authorities, nor can anyone accurately quantify overstays or gotaways.”
The nonprofit bases its calculations on changes in census data and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) estimates of undetected crossings.