Lux Lucet

Migrants charge the US border at San Ysidro, CA, November 2018.

Have you ever noticed that, no sooner does someone complain about the high cost of welfare for illegal immigrants, but cries of “Illegal immigrants aren’t eligible for welfare!” cascade from on high in an attempt to shame him into silence?

While it is correct to say that illegals are ineligible to receive federal welfare benefits, in practice many do.

I was reminded of this point recently while reading an article by William La Jeunesse “Most illegal immigrants in US receive government benefits, costing taxpayers billions: experts.”

According to La Jeunesse’s piece, a 2017 study by FAIR found that welfare benefits to illegal immigrants totaled more than $100 billion per year, not including the cost of enforcing the border.

So how is it that illegals who are not supposed to receive federal welfare benefits – many states have state-level programs which do permit benefits to illegals – end up receiving those benefits anyway? La Jeunesse provides several examples:

• Subsidized housing: As Breitbart reports, under current law, as long as there is one qualified person in the family unit, the family is eligible to receive subsidized housing. The qualified person is often an anchor baby.
  
• The children of illegal immigrants receive free, taxpayer subsidized education. Most qualify for English lessons and free school breakfast and lunch.
  
• Hospitals and clinics are required to provide urgent care without regard to legal status.
  
• Pregnant women are entitled to prenatal and postpartum care.
  
• Infant delivery costs are paid for by Medicaid.
  
• Families with U.S.-born children (anchor babies) are eligible for SNAP
  

The libertarian Cato Institute attempts to deflect attention from illegal immigrants receiving welfare benefits by arguing that Americans should not blame immigrants for the bloated welfare state, since Americans caused the problem in the first place. There is truth to this. Cato argues that Congress should simply pass a law making all people ineligible for welfare benefits until they become citizens, calling building a border wall or reducing legal immigration “fool’s errands.”

Cato goes too far here. While as a Christian I would love to see the welfare state rolled back and eventually eliminated, calling the border wall a “fool’s errand” while our southern border is being overrun by “the worst [migrant crisis] in the history of our country” itself seems more than a bit foolish. Apparently Cato is fine with letting bogus asylum seekers flood our borders and impose their costs on Americans until such time as Congress can pass a law prohibiting non-citizens from getting welfare. And that’s going to happen when? We need help on our southern border now. And if building a wall can help provide that help, so be it.

Walls work – if you don’t believe it, just watch this video from last November when hundreds of migrants are stopped by a wall as they attempt and fail to gain entry into the US – and can be an effective component in helping America get control of rapidly worsening migrant crisis, the cost of which, as William La Juenesse’s article makes clear, we cannot afford to bear.