A new study concludes that several states, as well as the federal government, spend billions of dollars on illegal immigrants while military veterans still languish on the streets as part of a devastating homeless epidemic in the United States.
The federal government spends roughly $217 billion on the Department of Veterans Affairs while the net financial burden of illegal immigrants on taxpayers annually is at least $132 billion, according to an analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform provided first to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The amount our nation spends on illegal aliens is 61 percent of what it spends on veterans,” the study said. “If the illegal population continues to grow, the cost to maintain them could soon surpass the total veteran expenditure.”
The study looked at areas where the majority of homeless veterans are living and then looked at how much taxpayer funding is going to illegal immigrants in those communities.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates there are just over 37,000 homeless veterans in the U.S., and roughly 25% of them live in California.
The study found that veterans in some cities in California wait an average of 50 days to be seen by a primary care VA clinic. Meanwhile, the state spends more than $23 billion on illegal immigrants each year and recently passed legislation granting taxpayer-funded health insurance to illegal immigrants that will likely cost almost $100 million in the first year, according to the study.
The study also brought attention to lawmakers in New York for spending $7.5 billion on illegal immigrants annually and allotting $27 million in college tuition assistance for children of illegal immigrants, but failing to add several hundred thousand dollars to an initiative providing education assistance to children of disabled or deceased veterans, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The growing problem of veteran suicide was mentioned in the study, as well, and suggested that lives could be saved if more money was spent on veterans issues.
FAIR found that more than 6,000 veterans committed suicide in 2017, including almost 500 veterans in California.
“If states cared more about veterans than illegal aliens, many of those 6,000 Americans may still be with us today,” the study argued.
In March, Republicans and Democrats unanimously passed a coronavirus relief package that contained $350 million in funding for the assistance of refugees and migrants.
