Illegal Immigrants would Get $10.5 Billion from Reconciliation Bill

Based on the reconciliation bill, a $1.9 trillion monstrosity, one would be forgiven for thinking that Democrats don’t want to stop with subsidizing non-working Americans, but want to go ahead and subsidize illegal immigrants too!

The bill, which Team Biden is pressing Congress to pass, includes a provision that would expand the child tax credit to pay for the children of illegal immigrants. According to a RealClearPolitics report, the expanded tax credit would be available to every illegal immigrant child and would cost American taxpayers $10.5 billion. Here’s what RCP reported about the ridiculous provision:

This includes the roughly 600,000 unaccompanied minors and persons in family units stopped at the border in FY2021 and released into the country pending a hearing. Cash welfare to illegal immigrants is not just costly; it also encourages more illegal immigration. 

Although it is referred to as a “refundable credit,” the new CTC, like the old additional child tax credit (ACTC) it replaces, pays cash to low-income families who do not pay any federal income tax. The new program significantly increases the maximum cash payment from $1,400 per child to $3,600 for children under 6, and to $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17. After 2022, the maximum payment would be $2,000 per child, but advocates hope the much larger payments will be extended. 

RCP adds that the old ACTC would have cost American taxpayers “only” $8.2 billion, as it would have only dependents with Social Security numbers eligible for the handout. Illegal immigrants with taxpayer-identification numbers would have been able to claim the benefits on behalf of their children, so long as those kids were US citizens with SSNs.

But even that wasn’t enough for the reconciliation bill’s authors, who tossed the SSN requirement and made the program open to any illegal immigrants, even if both the children and parents are illegal immigrants and not US citizens.

That expansion, according to the RCP article’s authors, would add $2.3 billion to the cost of the welfare for illegals provision. And that’s before the Biden Administration starts delivering massive payments to each illegal immigrant family separated at the border.

The RCP article’s authors add that the change would likely encourage illegal immigration into America and lead to massive amounts of fraud:

These payments represent an enormous inducement to illegal immigration. We estimate that 78% of illegal immigrants with children have income low enough to receive cash payments averaging $5,300 per family, or about $2,600 per child next year. To place these numbers in perspective, the median income in the current top illegal immigrant-sending countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador is $3,000 to $4,000 a year. The cash payment we are offering to virtually anyone who arrives with a child, whether they work in the United States or not, is roughly equal to — or in some cases exceeds — what migrants could earn in their home countries in one year.  

In addition to creating large costs for taxpayers and encouraging illegal immigration, the elimination of the SSN requirement would seem to be an invitation to fraud, as tax filers now simply need to provide a name and date of birth for a child. The only other requirement is that they check a box on their returns indicating they lived in the United States for half a year, though there is no enforcement mechanism for this provision.

[…]if we want to understand why a record 1.7 million people were apprehended at the border in FY 2021, we need to look no further than the large cash payments the House plans to give illegal immigrants.

So, Team Biden’s payouts to illegals aren’t just costing taxpayers billions. They’re also encouraging yet more illegals to migrate here, which will place an even greater burden on the Treasury and likely lead to yet more crime.

By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.