The Folly Of The GOP’s Border Wars, Part 2

The welfare parasite meme is risible nonsense. The 11 million undocumented immigrants, 2 million visitors on temporary visas and even most of the 13 million green card holders and refugees are flat-out not eligible for Federal welfare benefits. Indeed, to gain eligibility for federal welfare benefits the 26 million non-citizen immigrants in these categories must be resident in the US for five years.

Moreover, this ban on welfare eligibility is sweeping in its coverage. It encompasses 31 different programs which will dispense about $650 billion of the $700 billion of current means-tested Federal outlays.

These ring-fenced programs encompass Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Food Stamps, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and most federal health programs including non-emergency Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program(CHIP), and the Medicare program.

The ban also covers Foster Care, Adoption Assistance, the Child Care and Adoption Fund and low income energy assistance. Undocumented immigrants are likewise not eligible to receive insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act or to participate in the ACA insurance exchanges.

As it happens, therefore, the much ballyhooed welfare abuse is not the nefarious doings of illegal immigrants, but the handiwork of Washington politicians and policy bureaucrats who have confected seven- ways-to-Sunday around these sweeping eligibility restrictions.

So there is need for a Trumpian Wall alright, but rather than one made of cement and steel on the Mexican border, what is actually needed is a sturdy legal wall around Federal welfare that the Washington lobbies and bag-carrying pols of the beltway cannot vault over, tunnel under or shimmy through.