With just a few months left in office, the Biden administration is trying one last time to ignore low-income Americans and give preferential treatment to undocumented immigrants.
The White House recently unveiled a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to apply for government programs meant to help low-income Americans struggling to pay for their college education. According to Breitbart News, if enacted, the bill would allow illegal immigrants to apply for assistance through programs such as Talent Search, the Educational Opportunity Centers Program, and the Upward Bound Program. All of these programs were enacted by elected U.S. lawmakers to help American citizens who need help paying for their education. Now, like other programs passed by Congress, the Biden administration is exploiting these programs to push its anti-border agenda.
It’s no secret that the rising cost of education is a major obstacle for many Americans. According to the Education Data Initiative, the average college student in the United States currently spends more than $38,270 per year on tuition, books, materials, and living expenses. The high cost of attending college in the United States leaves millions of Americans with unpayable debt, preventing them from purchasing a home or starting a family. Many young Americans rely on the aforementioned programs to cover some of these harsh costs, but if this rule goes into effect, they will have to compete with illegal immigrants for these limited opportunities. The proposal to allow illegal immigrants access to programs intended for low-income Americans undermines the commonly-held myth that illegal immigration brings a net economic benefit to the United States.
Anti-border activists and politicians enthusiastically promote the argument that the importation of illegal and low-skilled immigrants leads to economic growth, while at the same time demanding their inclusion in government welfare programs and vehemently opposing efforts to ensure that immigrants allowed into the United States are not welfare dependent. These contradictions exist not only at the national level, but also at the state and local levels, where sanctuary cities that have long celebrated the benefits of illegal immigration now spend billions of taxpayer dollars caring for them.
The reality is that every country, even a wealthy and prosperous one like the United States, has limited resources. Left-wing activists and politicians will argue that the United States can afford to care for large numbers of foreigners while also caring for its own citizens, but the simple truth is that the more money and resources a country spends on illegal immigrants, the less money and resources it has available to spend on its own citizens. This is true not just in terms of access to government programs, but also jobs and housing.
“A lot of immigrants are coming into the country and taking jobs,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said last month, arguing that this is lowering the U.S. unemployment rate. These thought-provoking comments followed a June analysis that found that immigrants were responsible for roughly three-quarters of the job gains since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
There is also evidence that the ongoing immigration crisis is one of the driving forces behind record homelessness and skyrocketing housing prices. It is common sense, supported by data, that importing millions of illegal immigrants in a short period of time will destroy employment and housing opportunities. The same can be said about government programs. If the Biden Administration is successful in expanding these three education-related programs to illegal immigrants, fewer Americans will receive the support they need to attend college, and more taxpayer money will go to illegal immigrants.
Giving government assistance to illegal immigrants is bad policy and morally bankrupt, but it also fits perfectly into this administration's modus operandi. In 2022, the Biden administration repealed the public charge rule that prevented foreign nationals from accessing welfare programs. Earlier this year, the administration unilaterally expanded the Affordable Care Act to illegal immigrants, despite the law's original authors vowing to never do that.
“Programs intended to improve access to health care and education for low-income U.S. citizens would never have passed Congress, or received public support, if the public knew they would later be misused by a lawless administration to benefit illegal immigrants at the expense of the American people. Expanding these programs for illegal immigrants is a distortion of the original intent of these laws and a metaphorical middle finger to the suffering American people.”
Instead of providing aid to Americans in need, the Biden Administration continues to misappropriate welfare benefits to give handouts to illegal immigrants in what they believe will be politically advantageous in the future. This is a gross abuse of power and an insult to the people they are meant to serve.
Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm that works to protect the rights and interests of Americans from the harmful effects of mass immigration.
