Immigrants, illegals use welfare more often


November 29, 2007


By Stephen Dinan - Both immigrants and illegal aliens are more likely to be poor and to use welfare programs than native-born Americans because they come to the country with lower levels of education, according to a new study looking at U.S. Census Bureau data.

"The problem here is not work, or a lack of willingness to work; it's not legal status; it's educational level at arrival," said Steven A. Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which is releasing the report today.

The public burden is a major issue, and it was one of the disputes, along with border security and increased enforcement, that helped kill the Senate immigration bill earlier this year.

President Bush and some Senate Republicans had wanted to scrap the family-based immigration system that has dominated for the past 50 years and replace it with a system that awarded points for those with needed job skills, high education levels and English proficiency. But Democrats objected, arguing that family reunification should still be the guiding principle.

Mr. Camarota, whose group calls for a crackdown on illegal aliens and a slowdown in legal immigration, said his numbers show that the family-based system puts a strain on taxpayer-funded services.

"Allowing in legal immigrants mainly based on family relationships, and tolerating widespread illegal immigration, certainly has very significant implications for social services, public schools and taxpayer services," he said.

He said that makes sense — native-born Americans without a high-school education also are more likely to use welfare or to live in poverty. But he said that means that the burdens illegal aliens places on taxpayers can't be solved through amnesty because it would not raise education levels.

"You're not going to fix the problem of high rates of welfare use just by legalizing them — at least for the 57 percent of high school dropouts," Mr. Camarota said.

Nearly one in three immigrant households nationwide uses a major welfare program, compared with 19.4 percent of native-born American families.

But Angela Kelley, director of the Immigration Law Foundation, said the report didn't capture the true American experience of immigration.

"Immigrants come to this country; they work hard; if they can get legal status, that improves their chances, they buy homes, they learn English, they intermarry — and it's been the success story of this nation," she said.

She said federal laws are very tight about benefits — illegal aliens are not eligible for most types of social services and legal immigrants have to wait years before being eligible.

"There are a lot of numbers in this," she said. "It's like they're trying to take a machine-gun approach and spray us with a lot of bullets and hope the issue dies and goes away."

The report says overall immigration to the U.S. remains high, with immigrants now accounting for one in eight U.S. residents — the highest level in 80 years. Since 2000, 10.3 million immigrants have arrived, which is the highest seven-year total in U.S. history.

The study also found immigrants and illegal aliens account for 32 percent of those without health insurance nationwide and for 24 percent of those in or near poverty.

That has become an issue as the presidential candidates in both parties wrestle with how to expand health care access. Some candidates have said their plans would cover illegal aliens, although others, such as Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, have ruled that out.

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