"Illegal immigrants get free benefits!"?

Question

Au contraire, Pierre:

"Illegal Immigrants and Benefits

Undocumented Aliens Do Not Overburden Government Programs

May 30, 2008 Pierre Tristam

Undocumented immigrants in the United States may create problems for some. Burdening government programs isn't among those problems.

It’s a widely held misperceptions: Undocumented immigrants pay no taxes but take advantage of a slew of taxpayer-supported federal benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid and Medicare (the health care programs for the poor and the elderly), Social Security, housing and hospital services. In fact, federal law bars undocumented alien access to all those benefits, with very few exceptions.

A Nation of Immigrants

As of 2005, the most recent year for which data is available, some 37 million foreign-born people lived in the United States. That’s more than 12 percent of the population, the highest level in the nation’s history. An estimated one-third of those are undocumented, or “illegal,” immigrants, although the real number is unknown.

Before 1986, many social programs — health care, education, nutrition, welfare — did not specify that recipients had to be American or legal immigrants. A Congressional Research Service report notes that that began to change in 1986, when Medicaid recipients were required to certify under penalty of perjury that they were legal immigrants or citizens. Eligibility requirements were further tightened in 1996 when Congress passed (and President Clinton signed) the welfare-reform law known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. From then on, only citizens or legal immigrants, such as those with a Green Card, were eligible for federal benefits.

Federal law also bars states and local governments from extending those benefits to undocumented immigrants.

Benefits for the Undocumented: the Exceptions

Few, narrow exceptions apply. For example, undocumented immigrants are eligible for certain emergency medical treatments. They may receive short-term disaster relief. They may be immunized against communicable diseases. They may be served at soup kitchens or seek refuge in homeless shelters. Children of undocumented immigrants may attend public schools. But those same children are not eligible for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers children of the working poor not eligible for Medicaid.

How do federal and state government agencies keep track of eligibility? Through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement system, known by its ironically termed acronym, SAVE. The program was authorized in 1986 and requires almost all federal agencies to use it to determine applicants’ eligibility for social services.

Scant Evidence of Fraud

Still, perceptions are such that many Americans believe undocumented immigrants are abusing the system. There is little evidence backing up the claim. What scant evidence exists contradicts it. A 2002 Government Accounting Office report found that an estimated $1.33 billion in unemployment compensation was paid out to ineligble recipients. But just $30 million of that was paid out to illegal aliens, the GAO noted, or less than 0.001 percent of the $53.8 billion the Department of Labor paid out in unemployment that year.

Undocumented Immigrants and Taxes

Similar misperceptions about undocumented immigrants abound, especially when it comes to taxes. The perception is that the undocumented pay no taxes. In fact, they pay sales taxes like everyone else, most pay Social Security taxes, which they will never recoup, as well as income taxes: one is not required to be documented to pay taxes.

Debates rage over whether undocumented immigrants benefit from the American system more than they pay into it. Evidence is divided over the matter, depending on who’s making the estimates. What’s more certain is that the American economy would be severely hampered by the sudden vanishing of every undocumented immigrant, and that, when it comes to tax-supported government programs, the undocumented likely contribute more than they benefit."

http://www.suite101.com/content/undocumented-assumptions-a55867

Chris R:France Beat Mexico After · Accepted Answer

Illegal Immigrants Costs to the Tax Payer

   1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.

   2.$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

   3.$2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.  

   4.$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!

   5.$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the  American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.

   6.$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.

   7.30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.

   8.$90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.

   9.$200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused
      by the illegal aliens.

      10.  The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens.  In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.

  11.During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries.  Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.

  12.The National Policy Institute, 'estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of  between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'

  13.In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.
 
  14.'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States.'

 The total cost is a whopping $383 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

Anonymous · Answer

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act "EMTALA"

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is a U.S. Act of Congress passed in 1986 and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). 

It requires hospitals and ambulance services to provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. There are no reimbursement provisions. As a result of the act, patients needing emergency treatment can be discharged only under their own informed consent or when their condition requires transfer to a hospital better equipped to administer the treatment.

Bot Johnson · Answer

You are naive if you actually believe that.  For one, most of them don't just stroll in somewhere and admit they are illegal and demand freebies...they have phony social security numbers, aliases, etc.  Secondly, what about schools...sure their children are technically citizens (some of them), but if these illegals were not here to begin with (illegally!) their children would not be here to leech off of the public school systems.  And what about insurance...what about the illegal alien driving with no license and no insurance that hits someone else and causes an insurance claim, and/or injury...this happened to my parents when they were visiting Arizona, and the cop told them they have tons of problems with that, so don't say it doesn't happen.

Reason Enforcer · Answer

My current governor wanted to give Illegal Immigrants In-state tuition and protected class status.

It would have been more illegal to fire an illegal immigrant than it would have to fire me as a citizen. 

Check out how Mexico treats illegal immigrants http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2010/04/28/how_mexico_treats_illegal_aliens

Anonymous · Answer

You know what, I really do not care, did they or did they not break the law just by coming here?

I feel for them, I have seen true poverty in third world countries but that does not give them the right to break the law to come to the US.

Either change the law or enforce it.

Charlie · Answer

So you are trying to argue for the illegals huh? We are a nation of immigrants and I have no problem with that but I do have a problem with illegal immigrants. My great grandparents came over and went through Ellis Island. They came with nothing and they did it legally. Why can't others?

Anonymous · Answer

False. YOu need a credible website. Illegals do get free benefits. I see it all the time and they get more especially if they have anchor babies

antonia · Answer

I want to find out more about this as well

Anonymous · Answer

"Undocumented immigrants"  LOL.

Anonymous · Answer

Yeah, and Santa Claus is real - right?

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"Illegal immigrants get free benefits!"?

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