Why does the myth of "Illegal immigrants on welfare" persist?

To keep people focused on it, instead of other things.
Sorta like the damn Email thing.

Cause stupidity, and trolling.

To sell the hype, justify xenophobia, avoid pangs of conscience over kicking the defenseless.

And boy, they do, don’t they. They kick and scratch and throw rocks at defenseless children.

According to this report from the Center for Immigration Studies, they not only get welfare but they get it at a higher rate than US Citizens.

“In 2014, 63 percent of households headed by a non-citizen reported that they used at least one welfare program, compared to 35 percent of native-headed households.”

Don’t believe the Democratic hype.

Oh @Jaxk there you go…trying to insert facts into this discussion that don’t go along with how Trump and his supporters are evil. Illegals aren’t supposed to be able to get driver’s licenses or vote either, yet we have seen CA pushing to give illegals driver’s licenses and we have seen through several investigations that some vote too. But most of the jellies that foam at the mouth about Trump don’t care about any of that. All they want to hear is that their narrative is the truth.

I try to bow out of these Trump bashing sessions but sometimes I just can’t.

This has nothing to do with trump @Jaxk. This has been going on long before trump.
Nice report. I’ll start going through it when I get back. Thanks.

This is interesting “The modern era of immigration policy dates from the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act. This act removed the quotas for immigrants based on national origins and replaced them with a preference system based primarily on family unification and, to a lesser extent, on occupational skills. One consequence of the 1965 legislation has been a decline in the labor market skills of new immigrants relative to those of native-born workers. This decline has accompanied a decrease in immigration from more prosperous Western Europe and a rise in immigration from Asian and Latin and South American countries. Recent legislation, notably the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, restricted access to public assistance programs for noncitizen legal immigrants, and set a lifetime limit on public assistance for all residents.”

In other words in 1965 we created a law that discouraged more affluent European immigration while encouraging less affluent Latin and South American immigration.

I looked up the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996”
On August 22, President Clinton signed into law “The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 104–193),” a comprehensive bipartisan welfare reform plan that will dramatically change the nation’s welfare system into one that requires work in exchange for time-limited assistance. The law contains strong work requirements, a performance bonus to reward states for moving welfare recipients into jobs, state maintenance of effort requirements, comprehensive child support enforcement, and supports for families moving from welfare to work—including increased funding for child care and guaranteed medical coverage.

And that’s as far as I got and now I have to go.

@Jaxk Your report is about non-citizens. The Q is about illegal immigrants.

@Dutchess_III My answer to your Q is partly because their children born here can receive social services (food stamps, etc) since they are citizens and so indirectly the parents get money. Additionally, partly, because people confuse non-citizen with illegal immigrant, when there are many non citizen statuses that are legal.

@JLeslie – You need to actually read the article. “Of non-citizens in Census Bureau data, roughly half are in the country illegally.”

As if the Center for Immigration Studies is a non-partisan group to be believed. Ha.

I know the parents can apply on behalf of their children, but I wonder how many actually do @JLeslie? They have to be afraid of getting deported. And the benefits they would get would be much less than it would be for the entire household.

@Dutchess_III I have no idea the actual numbers.

Well when every body is legal the figure it for the number of people in the house. In the case of an illegal alien only the kids would be eligible, not the parents, so what the get is based on just the one (or 2) child, which wouldn’t be much. Not like if there were 3 or 5 people they could claim.

I realize that. Also, they may have an income not being counted if they work under the table or are using someone else’s social security number.

I think more than likely most don’t file for anything if the parents are illegal. Like you said, afraid of being deported. I don’t say that because of Trump, people without papers are always worried about that, except for some who are here on tourist visas who feel legal, but they work, so really, if caught working they can be deported without eligibility to return for many years.

You are right in that the sanctuary states and cities have much higher rates of aliens getting welfare benefits. Being in a sanctuary state, even if they get caught they don’t get deported.

It sounds like we’ve gone from “If they are not a US citizen they don’t get any welfare benefits, period” to ‘well they don’t get much’. I guess that’s progress.

I think it’s a distraction and waste of time dogging the undocumented for disproportionately swelling the welfare rolls. The Social Security administration almost certainly recovers that outlay and turns a handsome profit with the money extracted from their wages for benefits they will never claim or collect. And the report states right off the bat that it is impossible to gauge how many of those welfare dollars are actually directed to the American children of undocumented aliens. If folks without papers are receiving welfare outlays in numbers disproportionate to our own poor, it is merely a reflection of the fact that they are more desperate than our home grown poor people. Sanctuary cities and states may well be magnets for desperate migrants, but once folks are here, it is stupid to suggest that their kids should be denied vaccinations or an education for that matter. Our approach to this problem is exorbitantly stupid. If one tenth of the money spent on hounding snd deporting these people was invested in feeding, employing and housing them back home, the deluge might subside.

@stanleybmanly – Let’s put aside that you have absolutely no information, let alone facts to back up your claims. How much is one tenth? You know you would be the first one to complain if we were to intervene in another countries economy to the level it would take to rsolve all their social ills. Consequently we are stuch with foreign aid which is misused or out right stolen by the corrupt governments of these countries.

You may very well mean well but you have no idea how much money we’re talking about nor any plan to find out. Simply saying it is not a problem solves nothing.

I have to say that this conversation did start as a slam on anyone that dares to speak out against illegals…they are xenophobes, they are selling hype (I imagine this to mean hyping the need for a wall), they are stupid. Then suddenly @Jaxk shows a report that proves the rhetoric about no illegals getting welfare is the real myth. Now it is shifting to find some way to down play the facts. The source has been jibed once. There have been several responses that have tried to slowly minimize the facts, but these efforts have no facts at all to back them up. How about this…those that deny that illegals are getting welfare are believing lies that have been peddled by the left. Why is that so hard to believe and even harder to admit?

@stanleybmanly I don’t think they put that much effort into finding them once they’ve gotten established. If they keep their nose clean, they may never be caught.

OK fellas. I’ll take the dressing down and cop to it as legitimate. I’ll get back to you both later.