BOSTON — For years, nobody in state government wanted to talk about how much it costs to educate illegal immigrants in Massachusetts. On Tuesday, the White House did it for them.
The number: $1.6 billion a year. Roughly 70,000 undocumented students spread across the state's public schools, each one costing taxpayers about $23,000 — among the highest per-pupil rates in the country.
Since the Trump administration began enforcing immigration law, 7,000 of those students have left. That still leaves an estimated 63,000 in the system, running up a tab of about $1.4 billion annually. And nobody on Beacon Hill seems to want to talk about it.
The White House Rapid Response account published the figures as part of a state-by-state breakdown of what the Biden era's open-border policies actually cost American schools — $80 billion a year nationally.
Where the money went
The gateway cities absorbed the worst of it. Chelsea, Lynn, Lawrence, Everett, Revere, Brockton, Worcester — working-class communities where families were already stretched thin saw their classrooms flooded with thousands of students who didn't speak English, needed specialized instruction, and added pressure to budgets that were already bleeding.
Overall, Massachusetts public schools lost more than 15,000 students between fall 2024 and fall 2025. The White House cited a CommonWealth Beacon report from March that framed the decline as a "climate of fear." But there's another way to read it: for years, these communities absorbed a cost nobody asked them to carry, and now that enforcement has started, the numbers are correcting themselves.
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The families in Lynn who watched their kids' class sizes double didn't get a say. The taxpayers in Chelsea footing the bill for translators and ESL programs didn't vote for it. The cost just showed up — and kept growing.
The response from Massachusetts
Gov. Maura Healey addresses the New England Council. Photo via Governor's Press Office.
Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency over the migrant shelter crisis, then continued defending the sanctuary policies that contributed to it. Under her watch, a murder fugitive from Brazil was living freely on Cape Cod until ICE picked him up on a tip. Her office has not responded to the White House's figures on education costs.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu at Faneuil Hall. Photo by Joshua Qualls / Governor's Press Office.
In Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu called federal immigration agents "out of control" in January. She joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its enforcement operations and sued again when federal funding was pulled. She has not publicly addressed the $1.6 billion in education costs or the 63,000 illegal immigrant students still enrolled in schools across the state.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley at the Green Line Extension opening. Photo by Pi.1415926535 / CC BY-SA 4.0.
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In Congress, Rep. Ayanna Pressley has repeatedly called ICE agents "rogue" and pushed to abolish the agency. Her district includes some of the gateway cities where the enrollment drops have been sharpest. She has not commented on the education costs.
Border Czar Tom Homan.
The national picture
Massachusetts is expensive, but it's not alone. The White House thread broke it down state by state:
- California: Nearly $20 billion. LA Unified saw 20% fewer "newcomers." Inglewood's drop: 72%.
- New York: $4.6 billion. The 60 NYC schools that absorbed the most migrants under Biden saw those gains nearly erased.
- Florida: $4 billion. Miami-Dade foreign student enrollment down 80%.
- Colorado: Nearly $2 billion. Denver saw a 70%+ drop after being forced to spend $1.6 million last year on "late arrivals."
- Utah: $650 million. Largest K-12 enrollment decrease in 25 years.
- Washington, D.C.: Nearly $200 million. Migrant-heavy schools down 25%.
The Biden-era national total: $80 billion a year. Not in foreign aid. Not in defense spending. In K-12 public schools — the same schools that American parents are told are underfunded.
Enforcement is bringing the numbers down. But in Massachusetts, 63,000 illegal immigrant students remain. So does the $1.4 billion bill. And the politicians who let it get here are still pretending it isn't their problem.
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