FAIR Voices Opposition to Health Care Benefits for More Illegal Aliens

FAIR Take | June 2023

Last week, FAIR submitted a formal statement of opposition to a proposed regulation by the Biden Administration that would expand eligibility for healthcare benefits to illegal aliens with deferred action under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  In its statement, submitted as a comment to the Department of Health and Human Services, FAIR called for the regulation to be withdrawn.

The Biden Administration announced in April that DACA recipients would soon be eligible to apply for benefits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and some Medicaid programs.  According to the proposed rule, issued soon thereafter, DACA beneficiaries will soon be eligible for multiple federal and state health care benefits.  Those benefits would include access to ACA healthcare exchanges (commonly known as Obamacare), Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for pregnant women and children.

Remarkably, the Biden Administration is granting access to these health care benefits, just as federal courts appear poised to strike down DACA altogether.  The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled that the DACA program is unlawful.  Our laws clearly provide that Congress holds authority over immigration law and that the Obama Administration acted unlawfully in creating DACA.  Proceeding to expand benefits eligibility for DACA recipients not only perpetuates the unlawful program but also provides benefits to recipients that they may come to rely on, only to have them rescinded.

Expanding benefits in this way is not only contrary to our immigration laws but would also raise the costs borne by American taxpayers due to illegal immigration. Just this year, FAIR released a study on the fiscal costs of illegal immigration, which is currently the only comprehensive examination of the financial impact of illegal immigration in the United States.  FAIR’s study found that illegal immigration is a net cost to taxpayers of about $151 billion per year.

As highlighted in FAIR’s cost study, the U.S. government already spends more than $23 trillion dollars annually on federal medical expenditures, including for Medicaid.  Some of that money is spent on illegal aliens because some programs expressly allow illegal aliens to be eligible.  For example, the Affordable Healthcare Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, generally provides that any alien who is “lawfully present” is eligible.  The term “lawful presence” naturally includes green card holders and legal guest workers, but it also includes parolees (with some exceptions) and other aliens whose deportations have been deferred through formal or informal programs such as Temporary Protected Status, withholding of removal, deferred enforced departure, and deferred action – with the exception of DACA beneficiaries.

Due to a lack of transparency, however, it is impossible to estimate exactly how many illegal aliens participate in the ACA now, and what level of federal subsidy they receive.  Still, it is clear that expanding eligibility for federal and state benefits to DACA recipients will place an even greater burden on American taxpayers.

Given the illegality of DACA, and the costs related to further expanding health care benefits to illegal aliens, FAIR strongly recommended in its comment that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) remove DACA recipients from the definition of “lawfully present” for the purposes of benefits eligibility.

To read FAIR’s full public comment, click here.