As congressional Democrats are poised to allow welfare programs to lapse during the ongoing government shutdown, a new study is showing that immigrants may be the hardest hit demographic. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analyzed 2024 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data and found that nearly half of noncitizen households in the U.S. rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program benefits, at the American taxpayer’s expense.

“These results indicate that immigrant communities are going to be hard hit if the shutdown continues. The results also are a reminder that once low-income immigrants settle in the country, it is very difficult to prevent their use of the welfare system,” wrote the study’s authors, CIS Research Director Steven Camarota and CIS Demographer Karen Zeigler. “Many immigrants have modest levels of education and low incomes, so suspension of WIC and SNAP will impact a large share of this population. This situation also raises important policy questions, including whether it makes sense to have an immigration system that allows in so many people who turn to taxpayers to support their children?”

According to Camarota’s and Zeigler’s report, less than one-third (31%) of U.S.-born households rely on either SNAP or WIC, compared to 47% of noncitizen households, and while only 10% of American households rely on both SNAP and WIC benefits, 20% of noncitizen households rely on both programs. “Non-citizen households account for nearly one in five of all households with young children receiving WIC or SNAP,” the report notes. “The large share of non-citizen households using these programs is not due to immigrants having very large families. Non-citizen households with young children have only 1.1 young children under six on average and an average of 1.9 children under 18.”

“Roughly half of non-citizens in the survey are illegal immigrants; however, all non-citizens are eligible for WIC, regardless of legal status. Illegal immigrants are not directly eligible for SNAP in most states, but they do receive benefits on behalf of U.S.-born children,” Camarota and Zeigler observed in their analysis. “We have not yet developed an estimate for illegal immigrants in the 2024 SIPP. However, we have estimated 13.7 million illegal immigrants were in the monthly Current Population Survey in 2024,” the CIS authors wrote. “This means that 53 percent of non-citizens in that survey are unauthorized. A similar percentage seems likely in the SIPP.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that 41.7 million people in the U.S. use SNAP, meaning that as many as 4.5 million illegal immigrants are using the American taxpayer-funded program.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has also reported that illegal immigrants abuse SNAP. “We sent letters to every governor in America being very clear that no illegal aliens can use SNAP, zero, zero, zero. We asked every state for the first time in history, this was in February, to send us their data,” Rollins confirmed in a recent Fox News report. Only 29 states have complied so far, but Rollins reportedly found significant evidence of abusing SNAP to benefit illegal immigrants. “We have found thousands and thousands of illegal use[s] of the EBT card, we have been moving people off of SNAP, we’ve got about 700,000 people that we’ve moved off SNAP since the president took office, and we’ve arrested about 118 people.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, CIS Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan explained, “Our research shows that about half (47%) of all noncitizen households are using SNAP and WIC programs, which is much higher than the rate of U.S. citizen families using these welfare programs (31%). This is cause for concern for a number of reasons.” She continued, “First, we know that some of the noncitizen-heads of households are in the country illegally — perhaps about half. Illegal aliens are not typically eligible for these programs, but they can collect the benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children, or if they have certain forms of temporary protection from deportation.”

“Allowing illegal aliens to receive these benefits even on behalf of U.S.-born children means that U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing the lives of people who are here in defiance of our laws,” Vaughan emphasized. “This is a burden on Americans and legal immigrants, and it also can incentivize remaining in the country illegally.”

Vaughan continued, “The high number of immigrants using these welfare programs shows that we are not doing a very good job of screening out immigrants who will be dependent on government services, as called for in the law. Theoretically, those who are likely to be a ‘public charge’ should be denied admission, but our legal immigration system is heavily weighted toward family chain migration and humanitarian admissions (not to mention periodic amnesties of illegal aliens), and numerous studies show that these are the immigrants who are most dependent on welfare to support their households.”

“To reduce this fiscal burden,” Vaughan concluded, “we should control illegal immigration, avoid amnesties for illegal immigration, and reform our legal immigration system to limit opportunities for chain migration of extended family members — not to mention do a better job of screening out those who are not likely to be self-sufficient.”

Rachel Sheffield, a research fellow in Welfare and Family Policy at the Heritage Foundation, told TWS, “SNAP is one of the largest of the government’s means-tested welfare programs with nearly 42 million people now receiving benefits. It is just one part of a much bigger system that consists of roughly 90 welfare programs that come to a total cost of $1.7 trillion annually.” She continued, “The U.S. welfare system needs to be reformed to promote upward mobility, rather than long-term dependence, otherwise it will only continue to balloon. Among other reforms, we need to ensure that benefits are not going to those here illegally.”