Trump’s Commonsense Rule on Immigrant Welfare Use
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The newly finalized rule about immigrant welfare use is 837 pages long, but it boils down to two things: Foreigners who can’t pay their bills shouldn’t be allowed to move here, and “welfare” doesn’t just mean cash benefits.
As to the first: The first comprehensive immigration law at the federal level was the 1882 Immigration Act, which, among other things, excluded anyone who was “unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.” That principle — the “public-charge doctrine,” as it’s called — has been included in all subsequent immigration legislation, including the 1996 immigration and welfare-reform laws.
But the exclusion of “public charges” didn’t start in the 19th century, but well before that, when immigration law was handled by the states. In fact, preventing the immigration of people who couldn’t support themselves was the subject of the very first immigration law ever passed in the colonies, in Massachusetts Bay in 1645. It’s not too much to say that the public-charge doctrine is the founding principle of American immigration policy. So those arguing for the admission of foreigners (other than refugees) who can’t earn enough to feed their own children without taxpayer subsidies are arguing for a radical break with 400 years of practice.
The second point involves a more recent issue. In 1996 Congress passed welfare-reform and immigration laws that sought to put more teeth in the existing public-charge rules. These measures had no lasting impact on the share of immigrants using welfare; within five years, the rate of immigration welfare use was right back where it had been before the changes. Today, some 63 percent of households headed by non-citizens use at least one welfare program, including an astonishing 80 percent of non-citizen households with children.
But a third reason may have been the Clinton administration’s dishonest definition of welfare. In order to minimize the impact of the Republican Congress’s 1996 changes, the Clinton administration issued guidance that barred consideration of anything other than cash benefits for purposes of determining self-sufficiency. In other words, an immigrant using food stamps, Medicaid, free school lunch, and public housing — but not cash benefits such as TANF or SSI — was to be considered self-supporting, and his welfare use would not affect his future green-card and visa applications.
Ending this Orwellian practice was long overdue.
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"Immigrants shouldn’t just use welfare less than the native-born — ideally, they shouldn’t use it at all."
Well, the press will have a difficult time arguing against this policy change. The facts simply are not on the side of the open border activists. Highlighting the facts would only disclose to the public how much illegal immigrants depend upon government handouts.
Past administrations have used public funds to subsidize illegal immigration. That's consistent with the government's open border policy for trade; public funds have been used to subsidize offshoring jobs.
It's actually not really a "change".
Right. And if these people - as they always claim- aren't receiving benefits or being a financial burden on the taxpayers then they should have no qualms about enforcing these rules.
We should get our own people off welfare instead of bring in more costs.
Some just "Won't" get off welfare. It's too convenient.
Yeah really. Taking care of your own first.
What a concept eh?
Until Trump pays his own creditors, he needs to STFU.
YOU don't owe on anything ?
What is the counterargument to this? Where are the people who think we should let more people in and give them the same or even more benefits? Because that's the current state of politics on this issue.
And will these people also produce a pot of gold from the end of their rainbow to pay for it all?
When I brought my mother in law, a brother in law and a nephew here from the Philippines, I had to sign an affidavit stating I would be responsible for these people and they would not become wards of the state, or there could be consequences.
Why do liberals think it's OK to go on welfare the minute you step on US soil?
read: cloward and piven.