Thread: Expert: Current Policies Will Continue High Immigrant Welfare Use

by Caroline May
2 Sep 2015

More than half of immigrant-headed households in the U.S. access at least one welfare program, and that trend is likely to continue under the policies currently in place, according to Center for Immigrations Studies research director Steven Camarota.

“Our legal immigration system admits large numbers of less educated immigrants who are primarily the family members of immigrants already here,” Camarota explained in an interview with Breitbart News. “Most of these immigrants work but many are unable to provide for themselves or their children and so turn to the welfare system.”

Wednesday, the Center for Immigration Studies released a report analyzing data from on the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The analysis revealed that 51 percent of immigrant-headed households (both legal and illegal) reported using at least one welfare program in 2012, compared to 30 percent of native-born headed households.

That proportion largely holds true for both legal and illegal immigrants, Camarota, who authored the report, explained. And although there are restrictions on immigrant eligibility for welfare, such bars have not been effective as the report offers detailed explanations on the myriad exceptions and exemptions that have weakened them.

According to Camarota, current immigration policies are contributing to the high welfare use.

“If we continue to admit large numbers of less educated legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants to remain —most of whom also have modest levels of education — then immigrant welfare use will continue to be very high in the future. If you want to undo that, you have to vigorously enforce your immigration laws and, more important, turn to a very selective immigration system because one of the key findings is that the welfare use rates for the less educated are extremely high,” he said.

The issue is not that the immigrant households accessing these welfare benefits are not working. In fact, as Camarota noted, the vast majority of immigrant households had at least one worker in 2012, a phenomena he attributes in the report largely to the way the post-1996 welfare system has been designed — to aid low-income workers with children.

“There are very important fiscal implications for bringing in a worker. A worker that makes $12 an hour, $14 an hour and has two kids — lets say it’s a mom who has $14 an hour and has two kids, typically depending on how that job plays out that family is eligible for practically every welfare program,” he said

Camarota explained that once a person is in the U.S. and in need it is difficult to bar them from accessing the welfare system.

Regardless of the welfare cost, Camorota said, “Something is amiss when the majority of immigrants with children are not able to feed their own children, feed those kids. Half of immigrant households with children under the age of four are on the [Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children] and two-thirds of households with a child 5-17 — school aged — are on subsidized school lunch.”

“That says they are struggling to even feed their kids, or they are gaming the system. I don’t know which. But that suggests a problem putting aside the fiscal impact, that something is wrong with our immigration system if immigrants are struggling that badly,” he said.

Another bizarre trend, Camarota noted, is the relatively high welfare use rate among college-educated immigrants, who use welfare at twice the rate of their native-born counterparts. Compare 26 percent of households headed by college-educated immigrants on welfare to 13 percent of college-educated native headed households.

“I can’t explain that. I don’t know why that is,” he said, floating the expansive immigrant networks in the U.S. that provide assistance as possible causes and cultural differences.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...t-welfare-use/

Alan Gomez, USA TODAY 11:40 a.m. EDT September 2, 2015

More than half of the nation's immigrants receive some kind of government welfare, a figure that's far higher than the native-born population's, according to a report to be released Wednesday.

About 51% of immigrant-led households receive at least one kind of welfare benefit, including Medicaid, food stamps, school lunches and housing assistance, compared to 30% for native-led households, according to the report from the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for lower levels of immigration.

Those numbers increase for households with children, with 76% of immigrant-led households receiving welfare, compared to 52% for the native-born.

The findings are sure to fuel debate on the presidential campaign trail as Republican candidates focus on changing the nation's immigration laws, from calls for mass deportations to ending birthright citizenship.

Steven Camarota, director of research at the center and author of the report, said that's a much-needed conversation to make the country's immigration system more "selective."

"This should not be understood as some kind of defect or moral failing on the part of immigrants," Camarota said about the findings. "Rather, what it represents is a system that allows a lot of less-educated immigrants to settle in the country, who then earn modest wages and are eligible for a very generous welfare system."

Linda Chavez agrees with Camarota that the country's welfare system is too large and too costly. But Chavez, a self-professed conservative who worked in President Reagan's administration, said it's irresponsible to say immigrants are taking advantage of the country's welfare system any more than native-born Americans.

Chavez said today's immigrants, like all other immigrant waves in the country's history, start off poorer and have lower levels of education, making it unfair to compare their welfare use to the long-established native-born population. She said immigrants have larger households, making it more likely that one person in that household will receive some kind of welfare benefit. And she said many benefits counted in the study are going to U.S.-born children of immigrants, skewing the findings even more.

"When you take all of those issues into account, (the report) is less worrisome," she said.

Chavez, president of the Becoming American Institute, a conservative group that advocates for higher levels of legal immigration to reduce illegal immigration, said politicians should be careful about using the data. Rather than focus on the fact that immigrants are initially more dependent on welfare than the U.S.-born, she said they should focus on studies that show what happens to the children of those immigrants.

"These kids who get subsidized school lunches today will go on to graduate high school ... will go on to college and move up to the middle class of America," Chavez said. "Every time we have a nativist backlash in our history, we forget that we see immigrants change very rapidly in the second generation."

The center's report is based on 2012 data from the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation. It includes immigrants who have become naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents, those on short-term visas and undocumented immigrants.

Camarota said one of the most shocking findings from the report was the high number of native-born Americans also on welfare. About 76% of immigrant households with children are on welfare, but so are 52% of native-born households with children.

"Most people have a sense that if you were to work for $10 an hour, 40 hours a week, you couldn't be receiving welfare, could you? You couldn't be living in public housing, could you?" he said. "The answer is yes, you can. That's one of the most surprising things about this study."

Other findings in the report:

Immigrants are more likely to be working than their native-born neighbors. The report found that 87% of immigrant households had at least one worker, compared to 76% for native households.
The majority of immigrants using welfare come from Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. The use of welfare is lower for immigrants from East Asia (32%), Europe (26%) and South Asia (17%).
Immigrants who have been in the U.S. more than 20 years use welfare less often, but their rates remain higher than native-born households.



http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...port/71517072/

I say ship every one of them back home