By Jose Nino
Later this week, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether the 2020 U.S. Census’s question over citizenship status is constitutional.
Mass migration advocates worry that adding a citizenship question to the census would undercount 6.5 million people. Their concerns center around both political power and federal funding for states.
According to a Fox News report, advocates of border security argue that mass migration is costing American taxpayers a hefty sum of money
Dan Stein, the director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, says “We’re talking about billions of dollars in taxpayer benefits over the next few years.”
Stein argues that “The payout for the taxpayer is enormous and income to the Treasury is miniscule.”
A study that FAIR conducted in 2017 found that illegal immigrants “are a net consumer of taxpayer benefits worth more than $100 billion a year, not including the cost of enforcing the border.”
In theory, federal benefits are supposed to be off limits to illegal immigrants. However, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that more than 25,000 illegal immigrants receive subsidized housing. Children also receive free education and most of them qualify for English lessons and school lunch programs.
Under federal law, hospital and clinics are forced to provide urgent care to anyone regardless of their legal status.
Pregnant women are also able to receive prenatal and postpartum care through the Women, Infants and Children program. Medicaid pays for infant delivery costs.
A Journal of the American Medical Association study discovered that a federal-state immigrant insurance program costs $2 billion annually in emergency treatments. On top of that, infant delivery expenses totaled $1.24 billion.
Although illegal immigrants can’t receive food stamps, their children, through birthright citizenship, can. The Center for Immigration Studies found that 31 percent of these families use the SNAP program and more than 50 percent of Central American families are on at least one welfare program.
BLP reported that migrant crossings are on the verge of exceeding Bush-era levels.
Additionally, there are other costs to immigration. Europe has become notorious for its immigrant ghettoes, with BLP reporting on the rise of so-called “no-go” zones in Germany.
Taking all these factors into consideration, GOP voters see immigration as the #1 issue during the 2020 elections.
With border crossings on the rise, immigration will continue to be a hot-button issue in American politics.
Tom's Blog 