By Dawn Fantasia
Buried in the FY’27 budget proposal is roughly $17–18 million in taxpayer funding tied to programs serving people here illegally.
For example:
• $11.2 million for immigration legal defense, including legal services for individuals in the country illegally who are facing deportation proceedings.
• Roughly $6–7 million for the Office of New Americans, a state office whose purpose is connecting immigrants – including those here illegally – with government programs and services.
And that’s just the direct funding. It doesn’t count the many public programs now offered “regardless of immigration status,” where the costs are buried throughout the rest of the budget.
A tremendous amount of time and money is being spent fighting federal law and funding state “work-arounds.” The audacity of expecting NJ taxpayers to absorb the financial strain caused by reckless open-border policies is poor governance.
Legal immigration and illegal immigration are not the same thing, even though Trenton deliberately blurs that line; it’s an inconvenient distinction that jeopardizes the feelings-over-facts argument.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Before NJ forces taxpayers and employers to pay more, it should explain why millions of dollars are being spent on immigration legal defense and offices whose job is connecting non-citizens with state programs and services.
The question is simple:
Should New Jersey citizens come first?
