Children Help Illegal Residents to Get Aid, GAO Reports

WASHINGTON —  More than $1 billion of 1995 welfare payments and food stamps went to illegal immigrant families because some of their children are U.S. citizens, according to a new government report.

Although a child born in the United States to an illegal immigrant automatically becomes a citizen, “when such a child receives assistance, the aid also helps support the child’s family, raising concerns about the use of public assistance by those illegally in the United States,” congressional auditors said in the Nov. 19 General Accounting Office report.

The Republican-controlled Congress requested the study as part of last year’s welfare overhaul, which restricted direct access to public benefits by illegal immigrants but did not deny benefits to their citizen children.

“It’s obvious that there’s a huge loophole in immigration law,” said Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Texas), who is among the supporters of legislation that would require children to have at least one citizen or legal resident parent to be born citizens.

While the Clinton administration “clearly supports all federal efforts to deter illegal immigration,” Health and Human Services Inspector General June Gibbs Brown said in a letter commenting on the report, “our mission also requires us to improve the health and economic self-sufficiency of all citizens . . . including the citizen children of immigrant parents.

“It is important to note that citizen children are legally eligible for benefits on the same basis as other citizens, even if they have an illegal parent,” Brown said.

Payments to citizen children of illegal immigrants accounted for about 3%, or $700 million, of all benefits paid in fiscal 1995 under the welfare program known as Aid to Families With Dependent Children, said the GAO report.

A previous GAO study had found about 2% of lower total AFDC payments--or $479 million--going to the citizen children of illegal immigrants in 1992.

Almost all AFDC recipients also receive Medicaid, which on the average provides more than $1,000 per child each year for health care expenses, the auditors said.

For food stamps, the GAO found about 2%, or $430 million worth, went to the citizen children of illegal immigrants in fiscal 1995.

Nationally, 224,000 households headed by an illegal immigrant received the food stamps and 153,000 households, many overlapping, got AFDC.

The households averaged two citizen children each. More than 20% also supported noncitizen children not eligible for assistance.

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The immigrant families getting help were largely concentrated in California, New York, Texas and Arizona. California accounted for $720 million of the benefits paid. Ten percent of California’s AFDC and food stamp caseload is comprised of families headed by illegal immigrants.

The GAO report said households headed by illegal immigrants also get Social Security payments for low-income children with disabilities--commonly known as Supplemental Security Income or SSI--and rent subsidies through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Although comprehensive data was not available from Social Security, GAO auditors estimated that as of December 1996, at least 3,450 citizen children of illegal immigrants were getting SSI at an annual cost to the government of about $17.6 million.

Until recently, citizenship status was not considered when HUD determined eligibility for rental assistance programs, and the agency did not keep such information about participants.

The GAO auditors noted, based on a California study, that the incidence of fraud in obtaining public assistance--by underreporting family income, for example--appears to be no higher for households headed by illegal immigrants than for the general welfare population.