The southern border crisis has caused economic difficulties for some big American cities.
According to Axios, increased spending by city halls piles more pressure on the federal government to support their budgets.
New York City spent $1.45 billion on migration in the 2023 fiscal year, according to S&P Global Ratings, and is to spend $4.2 billion and $4.9 billion for FY2024 and FY2025, respectively, on housing newcomers crossing the US-Mexican border.
Chicago spent $275 million on new arrivals in FY 2023, but allocated just $150 million to house new illegal immigrants in 2024. Denver spent around $46 million on migrants in FY2023 and is already seeing significant cost overruns, according to the report.
Other cities are also facing soaring costs for immigrant accommodation and services. In particular, Massachusetts has already spent at least $360 million on housing, transportation and other migrant-related services in fiscal year 2024, while Washington DC has spent over $36.4 million, according to Axios.
The website pointed out that the burden on city budgets will not lighten any time soon, given that US congressmen have yet to reach a compromise on reforms.
Instead of reaching common ground on the contentious border and foreign military aid bill, US Democratic senators opted to strip it of border provisions. Although they got enough Republican support to pass the bill through the Senate.
On February 24, New York Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded Louisiana Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to back the bill, despite lack of funding to address the human trafficking crisis at the border. Johnson responded that he would not even schedule a vote on the bill until it was amended.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, has urged President Joe Biden to use his authority and existing laws to immediately close the border.
In December 2023, the US Border Patrol documented nearly 250,000 'encounters with migrants' — or illegal border crossings — the highest monthly total on record. A Pew Research Centre poll this month showed broad dissatisfaction with the Mexico border crisis, with eighty percent of respondents saying the Biden administration is doing a bad job of handling the migrant crisis.