Benefits for "non-citizens"

Nobel Prize winner and economist Milton Friedman told Forbes magazine: “It’s just obvious that you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.”

Translated for the rest of us, Friedman is saying that if you have significant government spending for social/welfare programs it is not a good idea to have high immigration quotas. I submit to you that in the United States today we have both. This is a key difference between now and the great migration of a hundred years ago.

In the past 50 years our government has spent huge amounts of money to fight poverty. And from the looks of things (particularly health care reform) that trend will continue.

It is only logical to conclude that it is NOT a good idea to continue to IMPORT the poor from other countries. At some point the have-nots will overwhelm the tax revenue and difficult choices will have to be made. Shall we pay unemployment to the citizens for a longer period of time or shall we extend that benefit to immigrants?

Shall we improve veterans’ benefits or provide health care for undocumented children?

And indeed we are seeing that scenario play out in Springfield (with the governor wielding the budget slashing knife) and in Washington (where the new White House staff is charged with determining what is waste and what is necessary).

So far non-citizens (as the census calls them) are doing rather well. Despite the welfare reform laws of 1996, which specifically addresses restricting benefits to non-citizens and the undocumented, we have been more than generous.

Some examples of our collective compassion:
Unemployment benefits are paid to any immigrant who can provide documentation of lawful presence. (One has to wonder if the documentation is legitimate.) Visit the Unemployment Office (IDES) in downtown Elgin and note the predominant language of benefit seekers.

Kids First free health coverage is available to illegal aliens, no questions asked. But the governor is unable to tell us how much the program is costing us.

Free public education in a language you can understand. The tab to U-46 last year was an estimated $70.8 MILLION.

Free English lessons. Elgin Community College now offers ESL classes to adults at no charge.

Free health care through the Emergency Rooms.

WIC and LINK programs. We’ve all watched people in the check-out line, three children in tow, unable to speak English and they pay with the blue LINK card.

The Illinois I-Loan home mortgage program proudly declares that they assist not only immigrants but illegal aliens as well. Immigration status is of no concern to them.

Now, the intent of our immigration policy is to screen people for self-sufficiency. The law is very clear that we are NOT to allow people to immigrate to the United States who will become a burden on society. How well is that screening working? Not well at all.

Well, the fact is that illegal alien influx has outpaced legal immigration every year since 1995. These people were not screened at all. Yet the principle means of identifying them (Social Security Cards and Green Cards) have both been compromised to the point where they are virtually meaningless.

And screening for those who have sought to come here legally has failed us when it comes to identifying future public burdens or reliable sponsorship.

A case in point is the census data from an April 2007 report:
Median household income
US Average: $48,201
Non-citizens: $39,497
People below the poverty line:
US Average: 12.3%
Non-citizens: 19.0%
People without health insurance coverage:
US Average: 15.8%
Non-citizens: 45.0%

How about Social Security SSI? Well, here’s the statistical report for non-citizens:
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/ssi_asr/2007/#top

Note that the percentage of people receiving SSI benefits who were non-citizens was 3.3% in 1982. In 2007 it was nearly three times higher at 9.0%. It had been as high as 12% prior to the welfare reform act.

The most egregious example is SSI for the elderly.
27.5% of all aged SSI recipients are non-citizens.

Surely it benefits immigrants who want to bring their aged parents here under the guise of family unification. We have better care facilities and it appears we are also subsidizing their bills. But as fragile as Social Security is, why would we allow them to do so?

Has our compassion gotten the best of us?


(Note: Non-citizens are presumable in the United States legally although the Census Bureau makes no attempt to determine immigration status. As for social service agencies, validating status is difficult to do. Some agencies don’t even try.)