If amnesty is given, to illegal aliens are they eligible for welfare?

Answer 1

Illegal immigrants are ineligible for public assistance, but are able to get it under false pretenses. Prosecution should be swift on those that falsely profit from such programs. Deportation and a ban on them ever entering the country again should also be done.

As of the 1996 welfare reform bill, the following applies to eligibility for federal and state funded welfare programs:

*Legal immigrants are barred from all federal means-tested public benefits for five years after entering the country and barred from SSI and food stamps until citizenship. They are also barred from all federal means-tested public benefits for five years.

*Benefits available to immigrants include school lunch and breakfast programs, immunizations, emergency medical services, disaster relief, and others programs that are necessary to protect life and safety as identified by the attorney general, regardless of immigration status.

*Illegal immigrants are barred from the following federal public benefits: grants, contracts, loans, licenses, retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, post secondary education, food assistance, and unemployment benefits. States are barred from providing state or locally funded benefits to illegal immigrants unless a state law is enacted granting such authority.

*The National Research Council (NRC) estimated that immigrant households create a net fiscal burden (taxes paid minus services used) on all levels of government of $20.2 billion annually.

*The NRC estimated that an immigrant without a high school diploma will create a net lifetime burden of $89,000, for an immigrant with only a high school education it is burden of $31,000. However, an immigrant with education beyond high school is a fiscal benefit of $105,000.

*The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) estimates that in 2002 illegal alien households imposed costs of $26 billion on the federal government and paid $16 billion in federal taxes, creating an annual net fiscal deficit of $10.4 billion at the federal level, or $2,700 per household.

*Among the largest federal costs, were Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison/court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).

*If illegal aliens were legalized and began to pay taxes and use services like households headed by legal immigrants with the same education levels, CIS estimates the annual net fiscal deficit would increase to $29 billion, or $7,700, per household at the federal level.

*The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that state and local governments spend some $4 billion a years to provide health care to illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children and $20 to $24 billion to educate children from illegal alien households.

*Illegal aliens with little education are a significant fiscal drain, but less-educated immigrants who are legal residents are a much larger fiscal problem because they are eligible for many more programs.

*There are now some 400,000 children born to illegal-alien mothers each year in the United States, accounting for almost one in 10 births in the country. Of all births to immigrants, 39 percent were to mothers without a high school education, and among illegals it was more than 65 percent.

*The costs associated with providing services to so many low-income children is enormous and will continue to grow if the large-scale influx of less-educated immigrants (legal and illegal) is allowed to continue.

*Focusing just on Social Security and Medicare, CIS estimates that illegal households create a combined net benefit for these two programs in excess of $7 billion a year. However, they create a net deficit of $17 billion in the rest of the budget, for a total net federal cost of $10 billion.

State and local governments spent some $400 billion on public education in 2003. Putting aside the higher costs associated with educating language-minority children, the costs of providing education to these children still comes to $20 to $24 billion for state and local governments. The federal government also provides funding for public education, a significant share of which is specifically targeted at low-income, migrant, and limited English students. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that the costs of educating illegal alien children at all levels of government, including federal expenditures, was nearly $12 billion in 2004; and when the children born here are counted, they estimated the figure at $28 billion.

If we are serious about avoiding the fiscal costs of illegal immigration, the only real option is to enforce the law and reduce the number of illegal aliens in the country. First, this would entail much greater efforts to police the nation's land and sea borders.

Much greater efforts must be made to ensure that those allowed into the country on a temporary basis, such as tourists and guest workers, will not stay in the country permanently.

The center of any piece of legislation should be enforcement. Enforce the ban on hiring illegal aliens. At present, the law is completely unenforced. Enforcement would require using existing databases to ensure that all new hires are authorized to work in the United States and levying heavy fines on businesses that knowingly employ illegal aliens.

Bottom line is that we need enforcement so that none that are illegal can abuse the American system that its citizens have paid for.

Answer 2

It's hard to say at the moment, since the amnesty bill is being rewritten as we speak, and it's difficult to keep up with the changes. However, since Section 631 grants the illegals, after amnesty, the right to educational assistance, I'd guess that they'll be eligible for virtually all other forms of welfare, too.

JMB

Answer 3

Not for two years if it is like having a greencard. When I sponsored my husband to bring him to the states I had to sigh a paper stating that if in the first two years he was go go on ANY kind of public assistance I had to pay it back to the gvt. or face fines and jail time.

Answer 4

Not just that, but a whole boatload of things that you and I as American CITIZENS will be taxed to pay for.
I just wonder if the men who originally took up arms against King George III would take this c**p lying down like we appear to be?

Answer 5

They already get welfare.
The American way of life will be gone forever just so a few can have slaves.

Answer 6

Of course. Possibly not immediately, but soon.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/sr12.cfm

Answer 7

Yes they are.... and considering the average yearly income in Mexico is around that of 1 months welfare check? well...
Expect a flood!

Answer 8

They already get welfare, & food stamps & free medical care.
When they get amnesty they will become less eligible for welfare because they will be treated like citizens not "guests".

Answer 9

Once legalized they too are suppose to pay taxes
then the people who hire them has to show the number
of newly legalized people working for their farms.

Answer 10

YES and they already get welfare and work "under the table".

Answer 11

Yes.