Are we spending up to $1,000 a day to care for child migrants at the southern border? The current immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border is turning into full blown headache and PR disaster for lawmakers on each side of the political aisle and for the White House.
U.S. taxpayers will not be pleased to find out that the cost to care for an undocumented child is between $250 and $1,000 per day.
It’s estimated that 57,000 children crossed the border since October. That number is expected to reach 145,000 in 2015.
Only the undocumented children caught crossing are accounted for. $1,000 a day for migrants is way too much even for people who support immigration reform.
Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona who was briefed on the matter by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said:
“One of the figures that sticks in everybody’s mind is we’re paying about $250 to $1,000 per child.”
Flake was one of main architects of an immigration bill with a pathway to legal status that passed through the Senate in June 2013 with a 68-32 vote.
The House led by Speaker John Boehner of Ohio has always refused to bring the bill up for a vote. Supporters of immigration reform believe that the bill could have prevented or slowed down the current surge of unaccompanied minors at the border.
President Barack Obama has urged lawmakers in Congress to allow $3.7 billion in emergency funds to deal with what some are calling an humanitarian crisis.
Obama’s request has been met with a lot of skepticism by elected Republican officials in the US House of Representatives only willing to meet him halfway.
As lawmakers debate endlessly about what to with these children, the cost is rising. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida who also supports immigration reform, believes that something should be done because $1,000 a day for migrants care is a a big number. Rubio said:
“I think now we’re starting to see the human costs and the economic costs of providing care for those who have entered the country illegally, and it behooves us to address this as quickly as possible.”
Immigration reform is not on the agenda for the foreseeable future, the border is not secure, Mexico is not doing much to stem the tide of illegal crossings, this human and now economic disaster really has no end in sight.
