Are children of illegal aliens bankrupting Maryland?

Maryland’s foreign-born population has grown by 34.6 percent while its native-born population has increased by 3.3 percent. .Public school enrollment of students who require special instruction in English has soared even more, rising by 93.5 percent from 2000 to 2008 while overall enrollment declined slightly.

A pair of recently released documents on illegal aliens in Maryland discuss the effect the spending has had on the state treasury. Both agree the cash-strapped state is spending at least $448 million on children of undocumented aliens per year and more than $100 million on health care costs.

The difference is in how one counts citizens born to parents who are in the state illegally. For example, the Federation for American Immigration Reform includes children of illegals when it compiles its figures. As a consequence, FAIR reports Marylanders spend more than $966 million annually on education for an estimated 80,800 children of illegal aliens. Nearly $250 million is spent on providing special English instruction to an estimated 35,000 children of illegal aliens. About 9.6 percent of the K-12 public school students in Maryland are children of illegal aliens.

The Immigration Policy Center excluded U.S. children of illegals when it countered the FAIR report this week. It says 68 percent (or $966.4 million) of FAIR’s “$1.4 billionâ€