Report: Illegal, Legal Immigrants Begin Unenrolling from Welfare Benefits


Reports that President Trump will soon bar illegal and legal immigrants from permanently resettling in the U.S. if they collect government benefits have prompted a wave of foreign nationals to unenroll from welfare benefits.

Apparently, this has been in the works for a while.

For months, Breitbart News has reported how the Trump administration is readying a plan — known as the “public charge” law — to reduce the burden of current mass legal immigration levels from primarily poor countries from which the U.S. imports more than 1.5 million mostly low-skilled foreign nationals every year.

As part of the plan, legal immigrants living in the country would be less likely to be able to obtain permanent residency in the country if they have used any forms of welfare in the past, including using Obamacare, food stamps, and public housing.

A report by Politico this month shows the effect of Trump’s expected move.

Local health providers say they’ve received panicked phone calls from both documented and undocumented immigrant families demanding to be dropped from the rolls of WIC, a federal nutrition program aimed at pregnant women and children, after news reports that the White House is potentially planning to deny legal status to immigrants who’ve used public benefits. Agencies in at least 18 states say they’ve seen drops of up to 20 percent in enrollment, and they attribute the change largely to fears about the immigration policy.

The Trump administration hasn’t officially put the policy in place yet, but even without a formal rule, families are already being scared away from using services, health providers say.

“It’s a stealth regulation,” said Kathleen Campbell Walker, an immigration attorney at Dickinson Wright in El Paso, Texas. “It doesn’t really exist, but it’s being applied subliminally.”

Immediately following the election of Donald Trump people began unenrolling.

Since Trump took office in January 2017, there have been nearly a million individuals who have dropped from the WIC rolls, going from 7.4 million beneficiaries to now 6.8 million. Not all of these dropped cases can be attributed to immigrants getting off welfare to avoid being chronicled as a “public charge” to Americans and thus potentially denied a green card.

As Breitbart News reported, the majority of the more than 1.5 million foreign nationals entering the country every year use about 57 percent more food stamps than the average native born American household.

Overall, immigrant households consume 33 percent more cash welfare than American citizen households and 44 percent more in Medicaid dollars. This straining of public services by a booming 44 million foreign born population translates to the average immigrant household costing American taxpayers $6,234 in federal welfare.

Sources: Politico, Breitbart

Image: US Dept Agriculture



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