No Benefits for Illegal Immigrants

Saturday, August 11, 2007; A16



Ruth Marcus's Aug. 8 op-ed column "Attack Ads You'll Be Seeing" not only left out important facts, it missed the point. The American people expect Congress to offer solutions to combat illegal immigration, but Democrats are making the problem worse.

Last week the House Democratic leadership thumbed its collective nose at the will of the American people by stealing a vote on a GOP proposal prohibiting taxpayer dollars from going to illegal immigrants. The column implied that our proposal is redundant, but Republicans know that current law is insufficient.

A June 2006 Social Security Administration report revealed that the government is one of the largest employers of people not authorized to work in this country. A June 2003 Agriculture Department report revealed that illegal immigrants were receiving federal housing assistance. Clearly current law is not sufficient.

Democrats also rolled back GOP reforms requiring states to verify citizenship for those applying for State Children's Health Insurance Program or Medicaid benefits. A 2005 Department of Health and Human Services report found that 46 states allowed self-declaration of citizenship for Medicaid.

Americans are compassionate people, but they strongly agree with Republicans that illegal immigrants should not be receiving federal benefits.

JOHN BOEHNER

U.S. Representative (R-Ohio)

ROY BLUNT

U.S. Representative (R-Mo.)

Washington

The writers are House Republican leader and House Republican whip, respectively.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02106.html