The Cost of Welfare Use By Immigrant and Native Households
In September 2015, the Center for Immigration Studies published a landmark study of immigration and welfare use, showing that 51 percent of immigrant-headed households used at least one federal welfare program — cash, food, housing, or medical care — compared to 30 percent of native households...
- The average household headed by an immigrant (legal or illegal) costs taxpayers $6,234 in federal welfare benefits, which is 41 percent higher than the $4,431 received by the average native household.
- The average immigrant household consumes 33 percent more cash welfare, 57 percent more food assistance, and 44 percent more Medicaid dollars than the average native household. Housing costs are about the same for both groups.
- At $8,251, households headed by immigrants from Central America and Mexico have the highest welfare costs of any sending region — 86 percent higher than the costs of native households ...
End Notes:
Here is a list of the countries grouped under the region categories...
- Central America: Belize, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama.
- Caribbean: Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies.
- South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela.
- Europe: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Holland/Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, USSR.
- East Asia: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, South Korea, Taiwan.
- South Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan.
- Africa: Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Morocco, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan.
Cairco Reference
May 9, 2016 - Return of the Surge: Illegal immigrant minors, families flooding southern US border - Two years ago, the Obama administration referred to the surge of Central American children and families coming into the U.S. as a "humanitarian crisis." This year, it's worse ... According to the latest CBP figures, agents detained 27,754 unaccompanied minors from Central America in the first six months of the fiscal year, almost double last year's total ...