The DREAM Act Comes With a Big Bill

Miami, FL (Law Firm Newswire) August 5 2014 – The cost of unaccompanied minor illegal immigrants entering the U.S. may run to roughly $2.28 billion by next year. U.S. taxpayers are footing that bill.

“The $2.28 billion figure, which is an estimate, has shot up from $868 million this year. These figures were sent to the Senate and House Appropriations by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and are based on the assumption that unaccompanied minors are likely to continue to flood the borders. They have jumped ten-fold over the last three years,” indicated Larry Rifkin, a well-respected Miami immigration lawyer.

The $2.28 billion figure was provided to the OMB by the Health and Human Services Department, and shows the influx of minors has risen from 6,560 in 2011 to over 60,000 in 2014. Given the current influx of these children, there is speculation these numbers may hit 130,000 in 2015. This is an issue with the potential to completely go off the rails. “Who is supporting these children? Where does the money come from? The answer to those two questions is, the Health and Human Services Department deals with the immigrant children and the money that funds them is courtesy of American taxpayers, who do not take too kindly to their tax dollars paying for illegal immigrants,” added Rifkin.

In response to a crisis in the making, the President launched the Unified Coordination Group to get a handle on the issue. According to Obama, this is considered to be a humanitarian issue and everyone needs to get on the same page to deal with it, or as his memo outlined, the situation requires a “unified and coordinated Federal response.” The goal of this group is to provide relief to the children, but there is no mention of what the government intends to do to mollify taxpayers.

“In retrospect, Obama’s DREAM may end up costing well over $2 billion. Is that a winning outcome or not? Only the results of the upcoming election may indicate who is to come out ahead on this conundrum,” said Rifkin.