Massachusetts: A Case Study in Mass Immigration and the Welfare State

By Jessica M. Vaughan on July 25, 2024

More than six million new migrants have arrived in the country since January 2021 outside of established lawful immigration programs, including illegal border crossers allowed to enter after apprehension, inadmissible aliens allowed to fly from abroad under controversial parole programs, and illegal aliens who evaded detection (the so-called “gotaways”). Together with New York, Texas, Florida, California, and Illinois, Massachusetts has emerged as one of the top destinations for illegal immigrants in recent years, according to government records on immigration court filings and academic research. As in other destination states, this influx presents a serious challenge to Massachusetts. While many lawmakers, including the state's current governor, Maura Healey, have long embraced sanctuary policies that guarantee access to housing, welfare programs, health coverage, and other benefits regardless of immigration status, some are now raising concerns about the cost to taxpayers. This report examines the fiscal impacts of historic levels of unlawful immigration in Massachusetts as one example of a sanctuary state, and recommends ways to mitigate the cost to taxpayers by reversing many of those policies before even more substantial costs begin to accrue in the coming years.

The cost to Massachusetts taxpayers of temporary housing and shelters is enormous, but it pales in comparison to the costs that will accumulate in the future if those in the temporary shelters today remain in the Commonwealth for the long term. 

Taxpayers in Massachusetts have spent more than $1 billion to date on the emergency shelter system that has been overwhelmed with the task of housing thousands of newly arrived migrants, some who entered illegally and some who arrived under one of the Biden administration’s controversial parole programs. State budget officials expect they will have to spend another $1.8 billion in the next two years.

It’s not clear where the funding to cover the shelter and other costs will come from, but Healey frequently expresses her strong hope that the federal government will soon help replenish the state coffers with funds recently appropriated by Congress for the federal emergency shelter program run by FEMA.

Federal funding may bail out the Bay State in the short term, but the unprecedented influx of migrants engineered by the Biden administration will prove to be a significant burden for Massachusetts taxpayers over the long run. The cost of temporary housing and shelters is enormous — but it pales in comparison to the costs that will accumulate in the future if those in the temporary shelters today remain in the Commonwealth for the long term. These long-term costs include schooling, social services, medical care, public safety, and more. These costs will accrue even if these migrants are able to find jobs, whether with a work permit or through illicit employment. Our research shows that immigrants generally have high labor force participation rates, but because most of the new arrivals lack the education or skills needed for an individual or family to be self-sufficient in Massachusetts, they will continue to access the state’s generous social safety net, much of which is available even to illegal immigrants who settle in the state.

This report identifies the most significant long-term fiscal impacts of the recent influx of illegal and quasi-legal immigration in Massachusetts. These include costs for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, public education, health care and health insurance, and public safety. Among the findings:

  • The number of illegal and inadmissible migrants living in Massachusetts is about 355,000, with about 50,000 new arrivals since 2021.
  • Illegal and inadmissible migrants are eligible for certain welfare programs in Massachusetts, despite federal bars on access to certain programs.
  • A significant share of migrants settling in Massachusetts who entered under Biden parole programs, including Ukrainians, Haitians, and children, may be eligible for welfare programs upon arrival.
  • Other parolees may become eligible for welfare programs five years after entry, regardless of whether they ever attain legal status. This cohort represents a potential fiscal time bomb in terms of welfare costs, beginning in 2026. The additional annual cost for SNAP benefits alone just for the parolees in Massachusetts could be $4.6 million.
  • An estimated 10,000 migrant children have arrived in Massachusetts since 2021, including 8,500 unaccompanied minors.
  • Everyone in Massachusetts has access to at least a basic version of government-subsidized or government-paid healthcare, regardless of immigration status. The legislature is considering a bill to expand this program to cover more health services for illegal immigrants.
  • The cost of incarcerating illegal alien criminals in Massachusetts now exceeds $27 million per year. This cost is exacerbated by sanctuary policies that shield criminal aliens from detection and by Biden administration policies that have reduced interior enforcement efforts.
  • State lawmakers could reduce the burden of illegal immigration on taxpayers by limiting access to welfare benefits, deterring and sanctioning employers who hire illegal workers, reversing sanctuary policies that obstruct immigration enforcement, and tapping into remittances migrants send abroad.

How Many Illegal Immigrants Live in Massachusetts? The current wave of migration to the United States is unprecedented, both in the number of new arrivals and in the share arriving illegally and outside of lawful immigration programs. Using Census Bureau data and applying the rapid growth of the last three years to the established estimates of the foreign-born population indicates that the size of the unlawful population living in Massachusetts has reached about 355,000. This is a sharp increase of more than 50,000 new arrivals since President Biden took office in 2021, when this number was about 300,000. Much of the increase is due to the arrival of illegal border-crossers who were allowed to enter under Biden policies, but some is also likely due to the increased number of visa overstays who have remained past their visa duration in recent years.

Illegal Immigration Has a Negative Fiscal Impact Overall. Numerous studies and government reports have shown that illegal immigration is a burden on taxpayers. On average, illegal immigrants pay less in taxes than they consume in welfare benefits and other social services. This is primarily because on average illegal immigrants have relatively low levels of education compared to Americans, which generally consigns them to working in lower-paying jobs. More than two-thirds of adult illegal immigrants have no education beyond high school, compared to 35 percent of native-born Americans. Moreover, many illegal immigrants work “off the books”, without income taxes withheld.

A 2007 report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reviewed dozens of studies that evaluated the fiscal costs of illegal immigration on state and local budgets, and concluded that:

  • State and local governments incur costs for providing services to unauthorized immigrants and have limited options for avoiding or minimizing those costs.

  • The amount that state and local governments spend on services for unauthorized immigrants represents a small percentage of the total amount spent by those governments to provide such services to residents in their jurisdictions … . Costs were concentrated in programs that make up a large percentage of total state spending — specifically, those associated with education, health care, and law enforcement [more specifically, elementary and secondary education, Medicaid, and corrections].

  • The tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants.

  • Federal aid programs offer resources to state and local governments that provide services to unauthorized immigrants, but those funds do not fully cover the costs incurred by those governments.

While many immigration advocates claim that illegal immigrants cannot access welfare benefits due to controls in federal law, in reality illegal immigrants can and do make extensive use of welfare. A few states have passed laws that allow all or some segment of the unlawfully resident population to qualify for certain welfare programs. In addition, illegal immigrants who live in households with U.S.-born-children are able to collect certain welfare benefits on behalf of the children (who are citizens at birth). Moreover, some illegal migrants, such as asylum applicants, parolees, or those granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS), may eventually obtain an interim or temporary status that allows access to certain benefits. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that nearly 60 percent of all households headed by illegal immigrants use at least one welfare program, compared to about 40 percent of households headed by the U.S.-born.

We estimate that the cost of these benefits on the national level is $42 billion, or 4 percent of the total cost of these programs. The programs include cash welfare payments, Medicaid, food/nutrition programs, and housing assistance programs. Illegal immigrant children receive school meals and Women, Infants and Children (WIC) benefits. Some states provide Medicaid and/or SNAP to certain illegal immigrants. In addition, illegal alien children attend public schools and are provided with uncompensated medical care, as most are uninsured, according to our research.

On the other hand, some illegal immigrants do pay taxes. The Center estimates that in 2019, for example, illegal immigrants paid about $6 billion in federal income tax, $16.2 billion in Social Security taxes, and $3.8 billion in Medicaid taxes. However, these contributions are more than offset by the cost of the services they receive. Using the methodology and fiscal impact calculations of a landmark study by the National Academy of Sciences in 2017, we estimate that, on average, there is a lifetime net fiscal cost to American taxpayers of $68,000 for each illegal alien.

Illegal Immigrant Eligibility for Welfare Programs in Massachusetts. A few states have passed laws to allow certain classes of illegal immigrants to access these programs, but Massachusetts had not done so — until the legislature quietly passed a measure in a supplemental spending bill in December 2023. This provision allocated $6 million to provide SNAP benefits for seven months to certain classes of inadmissible aliens, including lawfully and unlawfully present aliens (but not recent legal immigrants) who meet the income requirements. It was intended to cover most new arrivals who were not already eligible for benefits, and to be a bridge to more permanent funding that would be appropriated in the next fiscal year’s budget. However, the funds were drained in just over two months and the program was shut down. According to the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, 4,000 families received SNAP benefits during this time. The provision was not included in the budget for the coming year, although some advocates hope to secure some funding in a future supplemental bill.

Even without this legislation, certain categories of illegal and/or inadmissible migrants remain eligible for certain welfare programs, and there are significant numbers of individuals in these categories now living in Massachusetts. These include many of the new arrivals from Haiti, Ukraine, Cuba, and a few other countries and all migrants under the age of 18.

Judging from government data, reports in the news media, and claims of advocacy groups that serve immigrants, about half of the newly arrived migrants (an estimated 24,500 people) are potentially eligible for means-tested welfare programs immediately upon arrival (see Table 1).


Table 1. Categories of New Inadmissible Arrivals to Massachusetts and Eligibility for Welfare Programs


CategoryEstimated NumberEligibility
Cubans & Haitians14,000Eligible immediately for federal means-tested programs
Afghan and Ukrainian Parolees2,000Eligible immediately for federal means-tested programs
Unaccompanied Minors8,500Eligible immediately for all medical services
Other Parolees10,500Eligible after 5 years for federal means-tested programs
Entered w/o Inspection (Got-Aways)15,000Not eligible
Total50,000 

Source: Center for immigration Studies estimates based on a variety of government and news sources; federal and state laws govern eligibility.


In addition, under a new rule issued by President Biden, beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) are now eligible for subsidized health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

Further, illegal migrants who entered as asylum seekers or under a grant of parole (a number believed to be more than two million illegal migrants so far since 2021) will become eligible for federal means-tested welfare benefits (Medicaid, CHIP, TANF, SNAP, SSI, WIC, and emergency health care) after they have been here for five years.

About 20 percent of the illegal migrants who have arrived in Massachusetts likely fall into this category, which consists of those who were allowed to enter under parole, but were not exempt from the five-year waiting period to become eligible for public benefits. This group potentially will cause a noticeable increase in the total population collecting welfare, beginning in 2026, assuming that most of those allowed to enter under these controversial programs will not have completed their immigration case by then, and will still be living in Massachusetts at that time. Currently, there is a backlog of more than 150,000 cases in Massachusetts immigration courts, which is the seventh-highest backlog in the country, indicating that most of these cases likely will not be completed by then.

How big is this fiscal time bomb potentially? The Center estimated back in 2016 that households headed by illegal aliens consume on average $5,692 worth of federal welfare benefits each year, a cost that surely has grown over time.

Currently, there are an estimated 10,500 inadmissible aliens in Massachusetts who entered on parole, beginning in 2021 under Biden policies. If their welfare usage rate matches the national average for illegal immigrant households (60 percent), that potentially would add about 2,065 new individuals to the welfare rolls each year, beginning in 2026, 2027, and 2028, as they accrue five years of residence. Since the average monthly SNAP benefit collected by recipients in Massachusetts is about $188 per person, each additional cohort of parolees that becomes eligible and collects SNAP benefits could add $4.6 million to the cost of SNAP to taxpayers each year — just in Massachusetts. SNAP is federally funded, but some welfare programs, like Medicaid, are funded jointly by federal and state taxes.

A bill reported out favorably in February by the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities, titled “An Act establishing basic needs assistance for Massachusetts immigrant residents” could further increase the number of illegal aliens accessing welfare programs. This bill would expand eligibility for nutrition assistance (SNAP) and cash payments (TANF) to a large number of classes of illegal aliens and temporary residents, including asylum applicants awaiting court dates, those with TPS or DACA, applicants for Special Immigrant Juvenile status and U visas, and even temporary visa workers and foreign students on non-immigrant visas. The number of people residing in Massachusetts in the categories covered by the legislation is unknown, but is likely in the range of 100,000 people, of whom some lesser number would meet the income eligibility criteria.

For applicants to be admitted in certain Biden parole programs, such as the processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV Program) and Ukrainian programs, the alien must list a “sponsor”, and that individual must provide certain financial information on the Declaration of Financial Support form (I-134). This requirement has been presented to the public as a way of securing “private” support for migrants, implying little to no cost for taxpayers. But in practice, the sponsors are not required to provide shelter, support, or any other assistance to the migrant. Often the initial support is provided by NGOs, many of whom are paid with federal and state funds (i.e. taxpayers). It is not necessary that the sponsor know or be acquainted with the migrant beforehand, or that the sponsor be a citizen or lawful resident of the United States.

Costs for Education. One of the most significant burdens that illegal immigration imposes on state and local governments is the responsibility of educating children brought by their parents who crossed illegally, children who arrived unaccompanied (to work or to join parents already living here illegally), or children born here to parents who are illegal aliens.

The Center estimates that there currently are approximately four million children of illegal aliens or unaccompanied minors in U.S. schools. Using prior estimates from a variety of sources and applying the rate of growth of the illegal population overall, we can estimate that there currently are about 25,000 children in Massachusetts schools who are illegal aliens, and at least that number who are the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens living in Massachusetts. Of these, at least 10,000 arrived in the last three years under Biden policies, including 8,500 unaccompanied minors.

The state spends an average of nearly $23,000 per student per year, setting the base cost of illegal alien children at $575 million per year — with 40 percent of that cost attributable to the arrival of children under Biden policies. Moreover, according to the studies reviewed by the CBO, the cost of educating students who do not speak English fluently is 20 to 40 percent higher than the cost of educating a U.S.-born student.

In addition to schooling, the state provides other services to illegal alien children who arrived as unaccompanied minors. According to the most recent annual report of the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants (ORI), services to unaccompanied minors represent a whopping 61 percent of the office’s $19.4 million total budget. This dwarfs the amount of funding that is devoted to legal immigrants and refugees for programs such as naturalization, assimilation, and employment assistance. The vast majority (85 percent) of ORI’s budget comes from federal funding.

Healthcare Costs. Under federal and state laws, all illegal immigrants in Massachusetts have access to government-subsidized or government-paid healthcare. Many of the new arrivals, including Haitians and Ukrainians, have been granted entry under programs that give them immediate access to federal means-tested benefits, including Medicaid. As shown in Table 1, this is an estimated 16,000 individuals who are potentially eligible for Medicaid coverage of their healthcare expenses.

In addition, all children under the age of 19 who lack private healthcare coverage, regardless of immigration status, are covered for primary, preventative, and dental care under the state's Children’s Medical Security Plan. Two state lawmakers, Sen. Sal DeDomenico (D-Middlesex/Suffolk) and Rep. Dave Rogers (D-Middlesex) have introduced legislation (S 740 / H 1237) to expand this coverage to illegal immigrants up to age 21, and to provide more comprehensive healthcare coverage to include, for example, eye glasses, hearing aids, wheelchairs and other durable medical equipment, medications, mental health care, and rehabilitative services. The estimated cost of this program, if enacted, would be between $112 to $166 million per year.

The remainder of the illegal population that is without private insurance and not covered by Medicaid would have access to limited publicly funded health insurance. These services include pre-natal and maternity services, dialysis, and certain other conditions. In addition, under the Massachusetts Health Safety Net program, low income, uninsured inadmissible immigrants may have certain hospital facility services, such as hospital rooms, nursing, and technicians, covered by the state-funded program.

With the increase in the size of the illegal population, these costs are bound to increase. One academic study estimated in 2023 that the direct cost of health insurance for each additional nonelderly adult immigrant (legal or illegal) to be about $3,800 per person per year.

Public Safety Costs. Illegal immigration brings additional costs to state and local criminal justice systems as well as to government social programs. While research indicates that illegal aliens are neither more nor less likely to commit crimes as the native born, it is undeniable that criminals and others who are a threat to the public are among the population of migrants who are newly residing in Massachusetts. For example:

  • In early July a Dominican man who was caught crossing the border illegally in September 2023, and then released, was arrested in Milford, Mass., for cocaine trafficking.
  • In June, a Guatemalan man who crossed illegally, but was not apprehended, was arrested in New Bedford for child rape.
  • In May, ICE arrested a Russian man in Chestnut Hill who was wanted in his home country for large-scale fraud. He had crossed the southern border illegally with his family in May 2023 and was released, but now faces deportation.
  • The most notorious case is Cory Alvarez, who has been arraigned for the rape of a 15-year-old disabled girl that took place in his room at one of the motels converted to a migrant shelter in Rockland. Alvarez arrived last year under the CHNV Program, which has allowed hundreds of thousands of inadmissible migrants to register for entry from outside the United States. His sponsor reportedly lives in New Jersey.
  • In 2022, authorities busted a labor trafficking and human smuggling ring based in Brazil that exploited lenient policies for asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors to entice migrants to work in a debt bondage arrangement for two Brazilian restaurants in Woburn.

Every crime committed by an alien who entered illegally or under the auspices of an unlawful entry program not sanctioned by Congress is a crime that could have been, and should have been, prevented. Moreover, there are certain types of crimes that are associated with illegal immigration that are now increasing in frequency in communities that have absorbed many new migrants, including human trafficking, human smuggling, drug trafficking, certain gang crimes, illegal employment, identity theft, money laundering, wage theft, and forced labor.

Since there are no public records on the number of illegal aliens who are arrested or incarcerated in Massachusetts, it is difficult to ascertain the full direct fiscal costs associated with criminal aliens. According to a report prepared by the Boston ICE Field Office, over a 10-week period in 2018, 456 deportable criminal aliens were arrested on state or local charges, or roughly 46 per week.

Since that time, the number of criminal aliens removed by ICE from Massachusetts has plummeted, first due to pandemic policies restricting the number of people who could be held in congregate settings, and secondly due to Biden policies implemented in 2021, which greatly restricted the number of deportations that ICE officers were allowed to carry out. According to ICE records that the Center obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, deportations of aliens who had been arrested for state and local crimes plunged by 77 percent from 2019 to 2021, from an average of 88 per month to an average of 20 per month. As a result, a considerable number of deportable criminals are able to remain in Massachusetts and continue preying on Bay State communities, instead of being returned home.

The cost of incarceration in Massachusetts varies according to the type of institution and security level, with the average yearly cost of a state prison inmate reportedly reaching $178,000 in 2024. Massachusetts has one of the most expensive prison systems in the country, in part because corrections officers are paid relatively well in this state compared to other states. The yearly cost per inmate bed in local county jails in Massachusetts is estimated to be about $114,000.

The number of illegal aliens who are incarcerated in state prisons and local jails after conviction for a felony or two misdemeanors, and who served at least four days, is reported to the U.S. Department of Justice each year as part of the application process to receive partial reimbursement from the federal government for these costs, known as the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP). In Fiscal Year 2022 (the most recent data available), Massachusetts reported that convicted illegal aliens were incarcerated for a total of 43,811 days in the year. In addition, suspected but unconfirmed illegal aliens were incarcerated for another 23,816 days. This partial count of convicted illegal aliens accounted for about 3 percent of the total corrections population.

Using this information, it is possible to estimate that the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens who were convicted of serious or multiple crimes (not counting those held pre-trial and those who are released on bail after a brief incarceration) in FY2022 was approximately $27 million (average of annualized prison and jail inmate costs, which are comparable, multiplied by the annualized illegal alien days reported to DOJ).

How States Can Mitigate Costs of Illegal Immigration. Although illegal immigration, particularly the recent unprecedented influx of illegal immigrants, is the result of federal policy failures, states have authorities and policy options to minimize the costs of federal mismanagement of the border. State actions such as these have proven to be effective in reducing the size of the illegal population and in reducing the fiscal cost of services. For example, the implementation of new laws to discourage illegal immigration to Florida, including mandatory E-Verify, is believed to have contributed to a 50 percent decline in expenditures from the state's fund for emergency medical assistance for illegal immigrants in the year since the laws went into effect. Massachusetts lawmakers should take the following steps to address the current fiscal challenges:

  • Pare back services to illegal migrants to the extent permitted in federal law. States must provide emergency health care and schooling to all, and must provide certain means-tested benefits to certain categories of illegal migrants (such as those who entered under parole programs), but the state need not include health insurance for those over the age of 18, SNAP and TANF payments for unlawfully present aliens, shelter, child care, rental assistance, transportation, in-state tuition, entertainment, lawyers, or social workers. Those services should be offered by the NGOs that have been instrumental in bringing most of the migrants to Massachusetts, and the NGOs should assume responsibility for the migrants’ basic needs — at no cost to state taxpayers.
  • Initiate a lawsuit challenging the legality of the federal government’s expansive definition of eligibility for welfare programs that includes aliens who were granted parole after an illegal entry (see the analysis by my colleague George Fishman, former chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, who challenged this definition from its genesis in the welfare and Medicaid reform legislation enacted in 1996).
  • Limit eligibility for the state emergency shelter system to U.S. citizens and lawful residents.
  • Enact legislation directing all hospitals in the Commonwealth that receive Medicaid funding to collect information on the immigration status of all patients upon discharge, in order to accurately determine the cost of medical services to illegal immigrants.
  • Deter illegal hiring of unauthorized workers through expansion of E-Verify and through allocation of resources for state-led worksite operations to address labor violations, exploitation of migrant workers, and labor trafficking.
  • Through legislation and policy reforms, override the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision that blocks local law enforcement agencies and courts from honoring ICE detainers. Clarify through legislation that local governments must not prohibit law enforcement officers or other officials from communicating with ICE regarding immigration status, and deny state funding to those jurisdictions that do not comply.
  • Create a dedicated unit within the Executive Office of Public Safety and Attorney General’s office to focus on addressing crime problems associated with illegal immigration, such as gang crime, human trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering, human smuggling, and identity theft.
  • Repeal the law allowing driver’s licenses to be issued to illegal aliens, or at a minimum require these licenses to be clearly distinguishable from the standard license, and not valid as a secure or verifiable form of identification.
  • Require anyone sponsoring migrants entering under the auspices of a parole program or as an unaccompanied minor to register with the state for appropriate vetting, home study, and attestation that the sponsor will provide appropriate support to the migrant. Eligibility determinations for state-funded means-tested welfare programs must include the sponsor’s income as available to the migrant.
  • Require all NGOs that are engaged in migrant resettlement or support to register with the state office of migrant assistance, and to submit annual reports on the number of migrants resettled, location, services provided, and source of funding for these services. Mandate that all resettlement NGOs engage in meaningful consultation with towns and cities where migrants will be placed, before the resettlement occurs, to include a public forum.
  • Enact legislation requiring all individuals using a money transmission service to send funds out of the United States to provide a secure, verifiable, REAL ID-compliant form of identification that is retained by the transmission company. In addition, the state should impose a modest fee for all outbound money transmissions, with the proceeds of the fee to be retained by the state to help offset the cost of illegal migration.