A new study has revealed that President Trump’s strong immigration policies have allowed states like Florida and Texas to lower per-pupil spending.
An American Accountability Foundation (AAF) report obtained by Breitbart shows that the decline of English-learning students enrolled in Florida and Texas public schools during the 2026-2026 school year amounts to an $835 million to $890 million reduction in education funding.
In a July 23 memorandum issued by Thomas Jones of the American Accountability Foundation that was addressed to the Republican Governors Association, these savings are attributed to President Trump’s policies.
The report said, “In Florida the news is good; in Texas, where the drop far outpaced the overall enrollment trend, the news is great.”
For years, previous administrations had weak border policies that resulted in historic numbers of illegal immigrants entering the country. The enrollment figures illustrate this. For example, the report reveals that the number of students receiving English-language-learner instruction during the 2021-22 school year had increased from 277,473 to 368,068 in 2024–25. This was an increase of 32.7 percent, or 90,595 students. But after securing the border, that number fell by 23,641 students to 344,427 in 2025-26, a 6.4 percent decline. These numbers reflect fewer learners entering Florida schools.
In Texas, enrollment has declined as well. According to AAF, English-learning students, or “Emergent Bilingual” students, increased from 1,108,883 in 2020–21 to 1,345,917 in the 2023–24 school year. The latest numbers show that Texas experienced a 1.4 percent decline.
The lowered enrollment numbers mean the state is saving money. For example, the Florida Education Finance Program funds English-learning students using a base allocation of $5,372.60, which equals around $9,122.93 per student. Using the decline in students, the AAF calculated this to work out to savings of around $215 million and $235 million in education funding.
“The data is clear — ending Biden’s open borders leads to a lower burden on education budgets,” AAF concluded in the report. “Put more simply, supporting the President’s border-enforcement and deportation policies means more funding for your local schools — nearly one billion dollars in these two states alone, in a single year.”
