A few simple calculations indicate that as much as one-quarter of U.S. public school enrollment could be anchor babies, meaning children with at least one parent illegally present in the United States. This alone amounts to at least $145.6 billion in public resources diverted from U.S. citizens every year.

Here’s the math. In April, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that 17 percent of school-age children, or nine million kids, in the United States are children of at least one illegal alien. The New York Times has reported on the estimate. Some of these children are also foreign citizens, while some were born in the United States. Under a longstanding court misinterpretation, being born in the United States currently confers U.S. citizenship. Almost no other developed countries confer citizenship solely by birth location.

That’s already one in six kids in the United States who are legally subject to deportation to continue living with their parents. If you also assume that all of this population attends public schools, the percentage is more than 17. That’s because only 80 percent of U.S. kids attend a traditional public school, according to 2024 figures from EdChoice.

There were 50 million school-age kids in the United States in 2024, according to ChildStats.gov (adding in the five-year-olds to match the anchor baby age range and assuming there were 4 million of them, an equal age distribution among the 0-5 figure). Eighty percent of 50 is 40, so 40 million of the total 50 million U.S. kids went to public schools in 2024. Nine million anchor babies out of that total 40 million public-school attendees suggests 22.5 percent of U.S. public school enrollment could be anchor babies.

Why This Is a Reasonable Figure

Yes, these are estimates, and some very broad math. If anything, however, official estimates tend underestimate illegal migration, given its, well, illegal and illicit nature. So it’s absolutely within a reasonable range to assume somewhere around a quarter of U.S, public school enrollment is anchor babies.

It’s also fair to assume just about all anchor babies attend assigned public schools, for multiple reasons. First, public benefits are a key motivation for many foreign trespassers, as virtually all come from countries that spend far less on public services, including education. Even Kaiser says, “about three in four (77%) immigrant adults say they moved to the U.S. for a better future for their children.”

Plus, as even Kaiser and the NYT acknowledge, illegal immigrant households on average have significantly less income than the average American household. If the average U.S. household would prefer to enroll their children in private schools but doesn’t because of tuition, as EdChoice surveys have shown for years, illegally present foreigners are hardly likely to do so in any noticeable number.

Huge Implications

Now for some more math related to the taxpayer costs just of educating these nine million kids who would not be in the United States without lawbreaking. Federal statistics estimate U.S. taxpayers spent an average of $16,280 per student in school year 2020-21, the latest data available.

Nine million anchor babies times $16,280 each is $145.6 billion. Per year. Again, this is probably a lowball figure, for several reasons. First, taxpayer spending per pupil is higher today than in 2020, given the vast “Covid” money shoveled out and the resulting inflation pressuring legislatures to raise education spending for “teachers’ salaries” since then.

Second, the illegal immigrant population disproportionately hides in higher-spending blue states such as California, Illinois, and New York. New York taxpayers will shell out approximately $35,012 per student in the coming school year. In 2023, California public schools spent nearly $19,000 per student per year. In 2024, Illinois schools spent nearly $24,000 per student. This is another reason U.S. taxpayer spending on students who shouldn’t be in the United States is likely far higher than our $145.6 billion per year estimate.

Some might dismiss this astronomical figure as a rounding error in at least the federal budget. (Please, donate such “rounding errors” to my retirement fund!) But every dollar spent on a child who is rightly another country’s responsibility is a dollar not available for an American citizen. Further, this figure extended just seven years — about half of a child’s K-12 experience — totals $1 trillion. That’s half the current federal deficit.

A Huge Chunk of State Budgets

The fiscal distortions of just this one cost of illegal immigration are enormous, perhaps especially at the state level. States spend about half of their budgets on K-12, meaning 22.5 percent of fraudulent public school enrollment deprives legislatures of approximately one-tenth their annual revenue. That’s a ton of money not spent on other things taxpayers might prefer instead, including a pretty good tax cut.

To take an example: This year Indiana faced a $2.4 billion shortfall out of its $44 billion two-year budget. Indiana still managed to increase K-12 spending by 2 percent to $19 billion over the next two years. Indiana has approximately 1 million K-12 students, so that means it is spending $9,500 per student per year at solely the state level, meaning not including local and federal tax dollars.

If the average 22.5 percent of Indiana’s public school students are illegal aliens or their children, sending them to their home countries would alone have nearly solved Indiana’s $2 billion budget shortfall. That would be 225,000 students, at an annual state cost of $2.14 billion. Again, that doesn’t include the local and federal tax costs, which together are about the same amount as state expenditures, meaning it would have saved local taxpayers across Indiana another approximately $2 billion, not to mention all the downstream potential savings in smaller school buildings, less curriculum and supplies, and so on.

This means Indiana’s entire 2025 budget shortfall could have been due to the presence of illegal aliens, and solved by sending them where they belong. At the very least, illegal migration was a significant factor in the shortfall the legislature solved mostly with cuts to services and a dramatic cigarette tax increase.

In fact, an Indiana state senator, Republican Liz Brown, protected this problem by killing an immigration enforcement bill this session. She was enabled by Senate Pro Tem Rod Bray, who could have reassigned the bill to another committee than Brown’s and chose not to. Brown told Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita she held the bill because she has an illegal immigrant family member.

Does this family member have children now getting a tax-sponsored education? How can Brown morally protect people who defraud the very citizens who elect her?

Lots More Calculations Possible, Too

The total public funding siphoned away from U.S. citizens via anchor babies increases exponentially if you include the other taxpayer resources anchor babies use, such as Medicaid and school food programs.

The northern Indiana Catholic Charities refugee resettlement program, for example, stated that it connected migrants claiming to be refugees or needing asylum to Medicaid, housing subsidies, food stamps, “matching grants,” “cash assistance,” and Social Security disability funds, most of which are state-administered welfare. During Joe Biden’s presidency, nearly all asylum applications and hundreds of thousands of refugee statuses were fraudulent.

The amount of taxpayer money siphoned away by decades of unenforced immigration laws is truly mind-boggling. These anchor babies, their parents, and tens of millions of other migrants they’ve brought in via chain migration, would not be inside the United States if those laws had been enforced. They are all benefitting from defrauding Americans.

There are huge political implications, too. In time of declining enrollment due to America’s fertility crisis, these numbers also help explain why many public schools are promising to hide illegal aliens and anchor babies from federal law enforcement. These kids are one-fifth to one-quarter of public school revenue, and therefore inflate the schooling patronage and benefits system that massively bolsters the Democrat Party.

Your Money Is Your Life

Money is not just numbers on a spreadsheet. Money represents a person’s lifeblood, because to earn money one must work, and work takes time and energy. Time is a finite resource. We can never get it back after we use it on some endeavor such as working to pay our taxes and after that put food on the table for ourselves and our kids. It’s gone forever.

This means every dollar governments take from citizens equals the government taking away a portion of our lives. By not enforcing immigration laws, our governments have been essentially enslaving us against our consent. This is not only helping bankrupt our country and impoverishing everyone who lives here, it’s selfish, stupid, evil, and un-American.