Immigrants on welfare: Relevant factors often ignored

51 percent of immigrant-led households are on some form of welfare

The Center of Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for lower levels of immigration, released a report showing 51 percent of immigrant-led households receive some kind of welfare benefit. Benefits include Medicaid, food stamps, school lunches, housing assistance and more.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Households with children statistics show 76 percent of immigrant-led households receive welfare compared to 52 percent of native-born households.
Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies and author of the report said the immigration system needs to be more "selective."

"This should not be understood as some kind of defect or moral failing on the part of immigrants," he explained. "Rather, what it represents is a system that allows a lot of less-educated immigrants to settle in the country, who then earn modest wages and are eligible for a very generous welfare system."

Linda Chavez, a self-professed conservative who worked in former-president Reagan's administration says immigrants tend to have larger households and lower levels of education which leads to the necessity of welfare benefits.

She claims Camarota's study is skewed since many benefits counted in his study were actually going to American-born children of immigrants.

"When you take all of these issues into account, [the report] is less worrisome," she said.

According to Chavez, president of the Becoming American Institute, a conservative group advocating for more legal immigration levels, politicians should be wary when using Camarota's data during debates and campaigns. She believes they should focus on the American-born and studies that show what happens to them.

"These kids who get subsidized school lunches today will go on to graduate high school ... will go on to college and move up to the middle class ... Every time we have a nativist backlash in our history, we forget that we see immigrants change very rapidly in the second generation."

To further skew Camarota's study, his report is based on 2012 data from the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation. The data includes immigrants who have since become naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents, have acquired short-term visas and those who remain undocumented immigrants.

Chavez stated, "Most people have a sense that if you were to work for $10 an hour, 40 hours a week, you couldn't be receiving welfare, could you? You couldn't be living in public housing, could you? The answer is yes, you can. That's one of the most surprising things about this study."

Other findings include immigrants are more likely to work than their native-born neighbors, stating 87 percent of immigrant households had at least one person employed compared to 76 percent of native households.

Further analysis shows the majority of immigrants using welfare come from Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Immigrants from East Asia, Europe and South Asia were lower for welfare use.

It also reveals that immigrants who have been in America over 20 years retain higher rates than native-born households, but they use welfare less often.

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