The liberal Center for American Progress has a shocking expose on the large amounts of welfare that thousands, or even millions, of immigrants into the U.S. receive.
It seems to have been written and published by mistake.
The report, published Tuesday, was meant to be an explainer on why the Trump administration’s proposal to limit immigrants who receive government benefits is bad. The measure will put limits on legal U.S. entries and visa renewals for any immigrant who is or is deemed likely to become a “public charge,” dependent on the American taxpayer.
The administration began considering the proposal in August, and though it hasn’t yet taken effect, it would attempt to prevent immigrants from entering the country if they were likely to need welfare assistance soon. Immigrants currently in the country would also have their visas subject to nonrenewal if they were found to have received or applied for welfare benefits.
The CAP report, published Tuesday, intended to demonstrate that vastly more immigrants would be affected by the rule change than has been reported and to reveal the “misconception” that most immigrants who might be affected have received no benefits at all.
Perhaps CAP banked on no one reading the report, because what it actually reveals is that an astronomical amount of welfare goes to noncitizens and that the standards for receiving benefits when you’re an immigrant are absurdly low.
As of now, the government test to ensure that an immigrant isn’t and won’t become a public charge centers on whether he or she is “likely to become ‘primarily dependent’ on forms of ‘public cash assistance for income maintenance’ such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or General Assistance in order to survive,” as the CAP report puts it.
But the same report notes that participation in other welfare programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and government housing assistance aren’t considered when determining whether an immigrant is a burden to the public.
“The truth is … that most of the people who would be denied green cards and other visas under the revised test have never received any public benefits in the United States,” said CAP, waving a shiny object with its left hand. And then using its right hand, CAP steals your purse: “The potential future receipt of supplemental in-kind benefits … including Medicaid, SNAP, and rental housing assistance — does not make someone a public charge under long-standing policy and practice.”
Because “long-standing policy and practice” don’t consider certain forms of welfare to be welfare welfare, we are supposed to ignore that these forms of welfare put just as great a strain on government resources.
Despite what CAP wants its readers to believe, even the authors of a 2017 study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine — who believed more immigration to be a good thing — found that nearly 60 percent of noncitizen, non-naturalized, immigrant-led households used some kind of welfare from 2011-2013.
A separate study in 2015 by the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates restricting immigration, found basically the same thing, using only data for 2012. The study said that immigrant-led households consumed twice as much Medicaid and food assistance benefits as native households. Overall, 51 percent of immigrant-led homes used “any welfare,” compared to 30 percent for native homes.
Under current law, if immigrants have a baby on U.S. soil, as a default citizen, he’s instantly eligible to bring in welfare for the entire family. Or, if one immigrant marries a citizen, the wait time to start receiving benefits shrinks from five years to three. If the immigrants have any children under 18, they’re all allowed benefits, too.
In addition to that, all refugees and asylees — 13 percent of legal residents, according to the report by the Center for Immigration Studies — are eligible for full benefits. Journalists believe that this is a strain on our safety net that Americans aren’t supposed to bother themselves with.
Another complaint CAP had with the administration’s proposal is that it “amounts to new legislation — which should only become law if passed by Congress.”
That is diabetically rich, given that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals also amounted to “new legislation” though it was done entirely through executive action under President Barack Obama and subsequently declared permanent by a federal court order (although it will likely be challenged in front of the Supreme Court).
Guess where CAP stands on that “new legislation,” of which Congress played no part in crafting? Loves it.
If the CAP report is a liberal’s case against barring immigrants who come to go on welfare, it did the opposite.
