Illegal Immigrants Will Receive Welfare Under Senate Bill :Setting the Record Straight:

www.heritage.org ^ | June 18, 2007 | Robert E. Rector

[dennisw]

 

 

June 18, 2007
Setting the Record Straight: Illegal Immigrants Will Receive Welfare Under Senate Bill
by Robert E. Rector
WebMemo #1509 

In criticizing recent Heritage Foundation research on the cost of low-skill immigration and amnesty, proponents of the Senate immigration legislation (S. 1348), including Administration spokesmen, have falsely claimed that the proposal would not give illegal immigrants access to the U.S. welfare system.[1]

While provisions of the Senate bill would delay illegal immigrants' access to welfare for several years, over time nearly all amnesty recipients would be offered legal permanent residence and access to more than 60 federal means-tested welfare programs.

Specifically, Z visa holders would immediately be given Social Security numbers and would begin earning entitlement to Social Security and Medicare (which are not means-tested welfare programs). Some ten to thirteen years after enactment, amnesty recipients would begin to gain access to a wide variety of means-tested welfare programs, such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, public housing, and Food Stamps. The amnesty process under S.1348, and the different stages of the process at which amnesty recipients become eligible for different government benefits, are precisely described in "Amnesty Will Cost U.S. Taxpayers at Least $2.6 Trillion."[2]

The fact that amnesty recipients will have limited access to means-tested welfare in the first ten years or so after enactment will have only a marginal impact on overall costs. As the Heritage study states: 

The initial limitation on receipt of means-tested welfare will have only a small effect on governmental costs. Welfare is only part of the benefits received by immigrant families. Moreover, the average adult amnesty recipient can be expected to live more than 50 years after receiving his Z visa. While his eligibility for means-tested welfare will be constrained for the first 10 to 15 years, each amnesty recipient will be fully eligible for welfare during the last 30 to 40 years of his life. Use of welfare during these years is likely to be heavy.[3]
The Heritage analysis of the costs of amnesty was a study of the fiscal costs (benefits received minus taxes paid) of amnesty recipients during their retirement years. It concluded that amnesty recipients would impose a likely net cost of $2.6 trillion dollars on the taxpayers during that period and that these costs would mainly occur in two non-welfare programs (Social Security and Medicare) and in one means-tested program (Medicaid). The study explicitly states that these costs will not commence until 25 to 30 years after the bill is enacted.[4] To claim that amnesty recipients will not have access to the welfare system evidences an unfamiliarity with the provisions of S. 1348 as well as the Heritage analysis.

Defending S.1348 on the grounds that amnesty recipients would not be eligible for welfare also is hypocritical, because the position of the Administration has been to reduce the restrictions in current law on immigrants' use of welfare. For example, the 1996 welfare reform law prohibited legal permanent residents (green card holders) from receiving welfare for their first ten years in the country. In 2002, the Bush administration successfully promoted a change in the law to allow non-citizen green card holders to receive Food Stamps after five years in the country.[5]

It is also claimed that a second study by The Heritage Foundation, "The Fiscal Cost of Low Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer,"is an outlier in the field of research.[6]This study examined the net fiscal cost (total government benefits received minus total taxes paid) of households headed by immigrants without a high school degree. It found that these low-skill immigrant households, on average, receive three dollars in benefits for every one dollar in taxes paid. Low-skill immigrant households (both legal and illegal) now comprise five percent of the U.S. population and impose a net cost of $89 billion per year on the U.S. taxpayer.

There is one previous study of the fiscal impact of low-skill immigrants: the National Academy of Sciences' 1997 New Americans study.[7] The findings in that study match those of Heritage research: immigrants without a high school degree imposed a substantial net cost on the taxpayer, and the initial fiscal burden was so severe that it was not erased by the earnings and taxes of subsequent generations. Even when the net taxes paid by the immigrants' descendents over the next 300 years (roughly 10 generations) were estimated, the net present value to the taxpayer of low-skill immigrants remained slightly negative.[8]

The same National Academy of Sciences study also argued that low-skill immigration produced an economic gain, mainly by reducing prices. Most Americans, however, would find the reason for this gain unsettling: "There is a direct correspondence between the fact that some domestic workers suffer wage reductions and the fact that we gain as a nation" from immigration.[9]

Low-skill immigration reduces prices of some consumer goods because it reduces the relative wages of the workers producing those goods, including the wages of millions of low-skill non-immigrants who compete with the low-skill immigrants. As the National Academy of Sciences put it, "Although wage declines are real losses to the affected [non-immigrant] workers, they are also the source of a national ‘gain' from immigration."[10] A national policy that reduces consumer prices by reducing the wages of the least skilled American workers is hardly a recipe for long-term social and political stability.

The Heritage studies in question show that while college-educated immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits, low-skill immigrants do not. The best public policy would encourage the more high-skill and less low-skill immigration. Unfortunately, S. 1348 moves in the opposite direction.

Robert Rector is Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Interview with Tony Snow, CNN, American Morning, 7:51 AM, June 12, 2007. "I understand that it's important to try to total costs and benefits, but you have to take a look at the actual bill…. this bill does not guarantee; it says the people do not have access to the welfare system."

[2] Robert Rector, "Amnesty will Cost the U.S. Taxpayers at least $2.6 Trillion," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 1490, June 6, 2007, at www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/wm1490.cfm. Since the publication of this paper, an amendment introduced by Senator Jeff Sessions and passed by the Senate has modified the bill to delay a Z visa holder's access to the Earned Income Tax Credit. 

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., p.6.

[5] The White House, Working Toward Independence: The President's Plan To Strengthen Welfare Reform, February 2002, p.33, at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/
welfare-reform-announcement-book.html.

[6] Robert Rector and Christine Kim, "The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer," Heritage Foundation Special Report No.SR-14, May 21, 2007, at www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/sr14.cfm.

[7] National Research Council, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1997).

[8] Ibid., pp., 334, 342.

[9] Ibid., p. 140.

[10] Ibid., p.141.

[gubamyster]

ping

[3AngelaD]

It is worse than what Rector is saying, all of which is true, because: Benefits vary from state to state, but undocumented/illegal immigrants are not required to verify immigration status and CAN ACCESS:

* Federal and state emergency and non-emergency health care programs: Emergency Medicaid (includes labor, delivery and prenatal care); intervention services such as food, clothing and shelter and Women Infants and Children (WIC) programs; school nutrition programs, including School Breakfast Program, National School Lunch and After School Snack Program;

* Community assistance programs that provide medical, nutritional and educational support: medical care for pregnant women and for women and children who are victims of domestic violence; Head Start programs; services provided by nonprofit organizations and clinics, food pantries and soup kitchens;

* Public services: police, fire and ambulance, transportation, sanitation services; crisis counseling and intervention; short-term shelter and housing assistance for the homeless, child protection services and treatment of mental illness or substance abuse;

* Non-Medicaid funded public health services: immunizations for children; HIVAIDS-related care and treatment funded under the Ryan White Care Act; tuberculosis screening and treatment; testing and treatment of communicable diseases.

[dennisw]

Looks like the open borders crowd in the US Senate and the White House are lying about illegal aliens getting welfare, a bit down the road, but they’ll get and kill the budget

[Liz]

N-i-c-e find———thanks.

[lowbridge]

[at bay]

Get on the horn, every person reading this outrage. It is your duty, it is your privelege. Let them all know, in the words of a famous tv ad sheriff:

“Darlin’, we gonna haf to shut you down!”

[dennisw]

My understanding is millions of illegal aliens get Section 8 and other housing subsidies. The live in projects. I’ve seen Haitians (mostly legals) displace American blacks in housing projects. They either get subsidized housing outright because the state or country agency refuses to demand proof of citizenship. Lots of our bureaucracies are full of legal immigrants who will rubber stamp what illegal aliens want

Also many families are half legal/half illegal. The legal ones apply for gov’t subsidized housing. The illegals come along for the ride. The taxpayer subsidized ride

[Lobbyist]

I thought the Republicans took care of welfare “issues”. Remember the “welfare queens”? Remember the American citizens who tried to scam the system with multiple identities?

[dennisw]

National Review “The Corner” mentioned this new piece by Robert Rector. Who has been indefatigable in making good propaganda against this amnesty

[kjhm]

Do not forget to include the benefits women will receive under the “violence against women act”. Women and their children qualify for benefits to numerous to mention, anything from housing to legal assistance if she says she has been abused, no matter their legal status.

[joebuck]

I also read those receiving amnesty will be eligable for the earned income tax credit (a disguised form of welfare). This alone will cost us billions.

[kabar]

For example, the 1996 welfare reform law prohibited legal permanent residents (green card holders) from receiving welfare for their first ten years in the country. In 2002, the Bush administration successfully promoted a change in the law to allow non-citizen green card holders to receive Food Stamps after five years in the country.

And don't think for one moment that future Congresses will not change the rules to make these support systems more accessible to these newly minted legal residents.

[3AngelaD]

Yes, that is the case. Huge transfer to wealth to people who have broken our laws.

Current illegal aliens and new guest workers will be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, a refundable tax credit. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this loophole will cost the U.S. taxpayer up to $20 billion dollars in just the first 10 years after the bill’s enactment. All that is required for EITC eligibility is a social security number and resident alien status. Nothing in the bill’s tax provisions limit EITC eligibility. The issuance of social security numbers to aliens as soon as they apply for amnesty will ensure they are able to qualify for the EITC.]

[dennisw]

I also read those receiving amnesty will be eligable for the earned income tax credit (a disguised form of welfare). This alone will cost us billions.

Z VISA holders will have to pay taxes so I'd be shocked if they we're eligible for earned income tax credit 
EVEN NOW! Many illegals now have tax payer ID numbers and file taxes. One of the biggest reasons for them filing is to get that earned income tax credit 

• The IRS knows you by Social Security number 
• The IRS knows illegal aliens by their tax payer ID number

[TomGuy]

The important thing will be the bill that comes out of the Joint Committee, should the bill get that far.

Lott has already said many of the enforcements amendments to hoodwink this pig though the Senate will be dropped in Joint Committee.

Some of the new House Dems, however, may be balking. [Good news there.] This bill could still be in trouble. If the fines provisions remain, the House could stop the bill because it contains revenue generation.

[dennisw]

For example, the 1996 welfare reform law prohibited legal permanent residents (green card holders) from receiving welfare for their first ten years in the country.

Back then I knew a Portuguese woman who became a citizen just to keep getting SSI payments. She had had a green card for decades and got SSI disability checks, free medical up the wazoo, until circa 1995 Congress said these goodies are only for US citizens

[VOA]

bump

[3AngelaD]

And you should see them lined up to spend their Food Stamps at the grocery stores in Bailey's Crossroads in northern Virginia. I love it when they pay for their food with Food Stamps, crack out the $100 bills to pay for their beer, and then drive off in their new SUV. Our government has gone mad.

I also watched one family with nine, count 'em nine, little towelheads buy their week's worth of groceries with Food Stamps. I said something (pleasantly) like "What a large family," and Daddy Towelhead beamed at me. He has plenty to smile at. He is contributing to the towelhead takeover and WE'RE paying for it.

[Liz]

Rector wrote a great piece:

TIDAL WAVE; SENATE’S LOONY IMMIGRATION BILL

—SNIP—

.......would bring profound change. It would transform the United States socially, economically and politically. Within two decades, the character of our country would differ dramatically from what exists today.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/63899.htm