Emergency
Medicaid provided in emergency rooms, although well intentioned, has been used
and abused by illegal aliens as their own personal physician, resulting in the
bankruptcy of many small hospitals across the nation, particularly in
California.
Federal
benefits distributed to illegal aliens include: grants, contracts, loans,
professional and commercial licenses, retirement, welfare, WIC, disability,
public housing, college education, Pell grants, food stamps, tax credits,
earned income credits, tax refunds, and unemployment benefits.
The
Census Bureau reports 40 million foreign-born people residing in the United
States. In this category, one-third is estimated to be illegal aliens. Liberal main
stream media calls them “undocumented workers,” “in the shadows residents,” or “unauthorized
residents.”
According
to the Pew Hispanic Center there were 11.2 million “unauthorized immigrants” in
2010. Their in-house demographer,
Jeffrey Passel, used 2008 Current Population Survey (CPS) to estimate “the number
of persons living in families in which the head of household or the spouse was
an authorized alien,” for a total of 8.8 million families. Liberals like to
redefine illegal aliens with euphemisms that suit their agenda. Other sources
publish much higher numbers of illegals.
Illegal
alien families are likely to have U.S. citizen children or “anchor babies.”
These families are given “mixed status” by the Congressional Research Service.
Passel also estimates that one in three illegal alien children is poor. This is
obvious since illegal aliens have fled their home countries mostly for economic
reasons and dire poverty.
Liberals
lobby Congress to deal with illegal aliens based on controversies such as demographic
issues, how to treat illegal families that have “anchor babies” who are U.S.
citizens, and how strict identification requirements may hurt Americans who are
denied benefits.
Once
a foreign national had crossed the border illegally, they have committed a
crime which is not punished lightly in most countries. In the U.S. however, progressives
demand that illegal aliens have due process rights, eligibility for federal
assistance, educational opportunities paid by taxpayers, military service
opportunities, employment rights, and pathways to citizenship. No other country
in the world rewards law breaking with citizenship but the United States.
Illegal
aliens, a.k.a. “unauthorized residents,” come in three categories:
-
Visitors
who overstay their nonimmigrant visas
-
Foreign
nationals who enter illegally (“surreptitiously” as liberals like to say)
-
Foreign
nationals who enter with forged documents
-
Pregnant
foreign nationals who enter illegally in the last month or trimester of
pregnancy in order to deliver “anchor babies” (These foreigners have spawned organized
“anchor baby tourism” in cities like New York)
The
Congressional Research Service which produces data for Congress identified another
category of illegal immigrants, “Quasi-legal migrants.” In certain cases, the
Department of Homeland Security issues temporary employment authorization
documents (EADs) to aliens who are not authorized to reside in the United
States. They can, however, obtain Social Security cards. The CRS identified
several groups in this “quasi-legal” category:
-
Those
with temporary humanitarian relief who have Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
-
Asylum
seekers with cases pending for at least 180 days
-
Those
awaiting in the U.S. the resolution of legal permanent residency process
(family and fiancées of legal residents)
-
Tourists,
students, and temporary workers who overstayed nonimmigrant visas with
petitions awaiting to adjust status as employment-based LPRs (legal permanent
resident)
The
“quasi-legal” groups are often denied approval for legal permanent resident
status. Twenty-five percent of asylum seekers and generally, 80-85% of LPRs
petitions are eventually approved.
Special
illegal alien immigrant juveniles (under the age of 21 and unmarried) who were
homeless, orphans, or victims of abusive family situations are eligible for permanent
legal residence and become dependents of the courts. The court grants custody
of the child to a state agency, declares him/her eligible for foster care, and
determines that it is not in the best interest of the child to return to
his/her country of birth. Taxpayers then become de facto supporters of such
children. According to CRS, since 2008, such children exceeded 1,000 each year.
“Permanently
residing under the color of law,” (PRUCOL) has been used historically to give
benefits to foreign nationals who are known to be residing in the U.S. yet the
government has no plans to deport. “Quasi-legal” aliens fall in this category
of PRUCOL.
Social
Services Block Grants and migrant health center services are offered as limited
exceptions within the 1996 welfare act:
-
Treatment
under Medicaid for emergency medical conditions (except organ transplant)
-
Short-term
emergency disaster relief
-
Immunizations
-
Testing
and treatment for communicable diseases
-
Soup
kitchens, crisis counseling, short-term shelters
-
HUD
assistance
Although
the law clearly states to the contrary, pre-natal care, treatment, and
assistance under Medicaid, CHIP, nutrition programs, and other benefits are
given to illegal aliens, all funded by U.S. taxpayers.
Title
IV of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation ACT (PRWORA)
of 1996 (P.L. 104-193) “established comprehensive restrictions on the
eligibility of all noncitizens for
means-tested public assistance, with the exceptions for LPRs with a substantial
U.S. work history or military connection.” PRWORA expressly bars illegal aliens
from most state and locally funded benefits.
The
Department of Labor estimated $53.8 billion in unemployment benefits were paid
to illegal aliens in 2002 and IRS paid $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits
in 2010 to illegal aliens. Unemployment compensation overpayment of 0.51% of
total was made to illegal aliens. (Congressional Research Service, “Unauthorized
Aliens’ Access to Federal Benefits: Policy and Issues, Ruth Ellen Wasem,
September 17, 2012)
The
Food Stamp Program reported that 1.9 million U.S. citizen children (“anchor
babies”) living with illegal alien parents received food stamps, or 7% of all
participants. Medicaid spent $2.5 billion, $2.2 billion on treatment for the
uninsured, and $1.9 billion on food assistance programs, including emergency
Medicaid and school lunch programs. According to Steven Camarota, Director of
Research at the Center for Immigration Studies, “Many of the costs associated
with illegals are due to their American-born children, who are awarded U.S.
citizenship at birth…greater efforts at barring illegals from federal programs
will not reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access
them.” (Steven A. Camarota, The High Cost
of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget,
Washington, D.C.: Center for Immigration Studies, August 2004)
At
a time when so many Americans are unemployed, underemployed, out of the labor
force, and 47 million Americans are on food stamps because of the disastrous
economic policies pursued by the current administration, should we continue to
spend billions of taxpayer dollars on illegal aliens who are the responsibility
of their own countries?
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