Taxpayer cost to house immigrants??
Executive summary
The headline figure for the annual fiscal burden of undocumented immigration varies wildly across sources — advocacy groups and some House Republican reports put the cost as high as roughly $150–182 billion per year (FAIR/House Republicans) [1] [2], while academic reviews and older peer‑reviewed work show much smaller, more narrowly defined net costs in specific areas such as education and emergency services [3] [4]. When the question is narrowed strictly to the direct taxpayer cost of housing—temporary shelters, border processing centers, and detention or removal—the public record provides patchy, often partisan numbers and a handful of per‑case figures (not a single agreed national total).
1. What proponents of large totals cite: aggregated “fiscal burden” estimates
Studies and House Republican releases that generate the largest headline numbers combine health, education, enforcement, welfare and state/local services into an aggregate “fiscal burden,” concluding that taxpayers shoulder as much as $150–182 billion annually attributable to illegal immigration, and translate that into a per‑taxpayer or per‑migrant figure (e.g., $1,156 or $957 per American taxpayer after adjustments) [1] [2] [5]. Those reports are explicit about methodology: they aggregate many categories of spending across federal, state and local governments rather than isolating housing or detention costs alone [1] [2].
2. Direct housing, shelter and detention costs — what the record shows
Concrete per‑case numbers exist in the enforcement sphere: the Department of Homeland Security reported an average enforced deportation cost of roughly $18,245 and framed a policy change offering $2,600 stipends for voluntary departures that it said would lower the cost of a self‑deportation to about $5,100 per person [6]. State tracking efforts have produced sharp, localized figures for health and emergency services tied to migrants — for example, Texas reported more than $1 billion in hospital costs linked to undocumented migrants in FY2025 under a state accounting order [7] — but those are healthcare costs, not shelter per se. Nationally consistent line items isolating “housing” costs (shelters, short‑term congregate care, hoteling, or detention bed‑day averages multiplied by migrant counts) are not available in the supplied sources.
3. Why totals diverge: scope, attribution and politics
Differences in estimates largely stem from three choices: which populations are counted (undocumented only, or also U.S.‑born children of undocumented parents), which programs are attributed to immigration (emergency Medicaid, K‑12 education, local policing), and whether taxes paid by immigrants are netted out [1] [3] [4]. Organizations with an enforcement or fiscal‑pressure mission emphasize gross expenditures and include large categories such as long‑term education and public benefits; academic and some government analyses often show smaller net fiscal impacts after accounting for taxes and long‑term contributions [3] [4]. Those methodological choices are frequently aligned with political aims: advocacy groups and committee reports seeking policy change present higher burdens [1] [2], whereas analyses focused on net fiscal balance highlight offsetting tax contributions [4] [3].
4. The narrow answer — taxpayer cost to “house” migrants right now
Based on available reporting, an exact, universally accepted national total for the taxpayer cost to house migrants (shelters, short‑term housing, detention, transitional programs) cannot be produced from the supplied sources; what exists are per‑case enforcement figures (e.g., $18,245 per enforced deportation; $5,100 claimed for voluntary departures with stipend) and state snapshots of related costs like hospital bills [6] [7]. National headlines that fold housing into a $150–182 billion annual “cost” are using broader aggregate accounting rather than isolating shelter line items [1] [5].
5. What’s missing and how to get closer to a defensible number
A defensible, narrow estimate would require standardized federal and state reporting that separates: (a) short‑term shelter/hotel costs and detention bed‑day costs; (b) transportation and processing expenses; and (c) federal vs. state vs. local shares — with transparent accounting for taxes paid by migrants and for the inclusion or exclusion of U.S.‑born children (something the current partisan reports do not uniformly provide) [1] [4]. Absent that, public debate will continue to cite incompatible totals that reflect distinct agendas: stricter enforcement and fiscal alarmism on one side, and analysts emphasizing net contributions and methodological caveats on the other [2] [3].