The White House has admitted that under Obama’s proposal to offer amnesty to nearly five million illegal immigrants, those illegals would also receive tax credits and other benefits, prompting Republicans to further criticize the president’s immigration policy.
On November 20, the president announced that he would use executive action to remove the “fear of deportation” and provide three-year work permits for up to five million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States.
The White House insists that such an executive order would fall within Obama’s presidential powers, despite the fact that according to the Constitution, only Congress makes laws. A White House official told Fox News, “The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that federal officials can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws, and we are confident that the president’s executive actions are well within his legal authorities.”
Obama’s proposal to use executive action to achieve immigration reform is directly counter to statements he made on a number of previous occasions over the years, when he admitted that as president he did not have the constitutional authority to issue amnesty.
According to Speaker of the House John Boehner, Obama publicly declared 22 times in the past several years that taking unilateral executive action on immigration was beyond the scope of his authority.
On that very subject, the Washington Post has awarded the president an upside down Pinocchio as a result of “a statement that represents a clear but unacknowledged ‘flip-flop’ from a previously-held position.”
The president’s November 20 announcement provoked an immediate reaction from Republicans, as well as from the states, 20 of which have joined together — led by Texas — to sue the administration.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has defended the proposed executive action by asserting that the president’s intent is to turn the illegals into taxpayers — who would consequently be eligible for tax credits, Social Security, and Medicare. Last week, he insisted,
The goal of the executive — one of the goals of the executive action program or executive action that the president announced, as it relates to immigration, about 10 days ago, was related to bringing those individuals who have been in this country for some time out of the shadows, giving them a work permit … and giving them a Social Security number and making them taxpayers. And that does mean that they’re going to be filing their taxes on a regular basis and that does mean that if they qualify for the child tax credit, for example, as a taxpayer that would be something that they would benefit from.
But we released this study from the Council of Economic Advisers, who talked about the significant economic benefits for the country associated with bringing these individuals out of the shadows so they’re not getting paid in cash under the table but actually sort of part of the broader economy.
Katherine Vargas, a White House spokeswoman, specified that once immigrants register under deferred action, they become taxpayers, contributing their “fair share into Social Security and Medicare.”
“And only after they’ve paid taxes for over a decade will they become eligible for Social Security,” Vargas said. “As taxpayers, deferred action recipients will pay into these systems and receive the same benefits on these issues as other taxpayers.”
Voicing frustration at this announcement, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) issued a statement to National Review asserting,
This is yet more illustration of the enormous cost inflicted by the President’s illegal action. He has now launched a new $100 million facility and staffing operation to provide illegal immigrants with the exact benefits rejected by Congress — including work permits, Social Security and Medicare. These credits will cost American taxpayers billions every year and represent an enormous cash transfer from American workers to lower-wage illegal workers. These tax credits are not refunds, but a direct cash payment from the Treasury to illegal immigrants — at a time when the Treasury is running huge deficits.
Sessions also pointed to Earnest’s statement as further proof that the president has no intention of enforcing immigration laws:
Congress must also demand enforcement of our unenforced public charge rules — millions continue to enter the U.S. lawfully and claim taxpayer benefits when sound law and policy demands self-sufficiency. A bedrock principle of immigration is that immigrant arrivals should not rely on public benefits from the host country, and yet this basic principle is virtually never applied.
The cost of amnesty, according to the Heritage Foundation, will be approximately $2 trillion over the next 50 years, partly because the average illegal immigrant who benefits from amnesty has only a 10th grade education.
The Heritage Foundation explains, “That low education ensures they can’t earn enough money, or pay enough taxes, to pay for the many benefits they’ll get if they progress from temporary residents to legal residents and then to citizens.”
Furthermore, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the amnesty process will be plagued by fraud. One official explained that it will be a “major problem for the new amnesty — though just how big is anyone’s guess, because the administration has turned a blind eye to those warnings.”
Senator Sessions has expressed concerns that bureaucrats will likely approve most applications for amnesty that do not meet the eligibility requirements.
And once those applications are approved, the immigrants will then be entitled to Social Security and Medicare. The AP writes, “Describing the administration’s position, one official said … that any immigrant considered lawfully present and holding a Social Security number would be entitled to Social Security and Medicare upon retirement because they would have paid into the system.”
Those who receive Social Security numbers and green cards will then be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Additional Child Tax Credit.
The Atlantic reports,
The IRS has neither the means nor the resources to deny EITC and ACTC to anyone with a valid nine-digit Social Security number. ACTC already pays huge amounts to illegal aliens holding only ITINs — $4.2 billion in 2010, according to the Treasury Department’s own inspector general. Once those ITIN holders gain Social Security numbers, it will become even less feasible to distinguish between presidentially and congressionally authorized resident aliens, even supposing the administration wished to do so — which of course it does not. So both the EITC and the ACTC are destined to grow hugely.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are considering using a spending bill as leverage to defund the immigration initiatives. House Speaker John Boehner is hoping, however, to hold off on that action until next year, when Republicans will control both chambers.
