Report: SCOTUS Birthright Plaintiff Admitted She Sued to Get Welfare

The immigration lobby and its far-left Mainstream Media Megaphone wanted everyone to believe that President Donald Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship went down in flames because a brave plaintiff who just wanted what was right took on the administration, then prevailed in the U.S. Supreme Court.

But just as 1973’s Roe v. Wade case involved the big lie that the plaintiff, later identified as Norma McCorvey, was raped, so this case was based on a lie as well.

In a story the media has ignored, Jason Richwine of the Center for Immigration Studies found out who the “Barbara” in Trump v. Barbara was. Richwine dug into lower-court files to find her real motive in filing the lawsuit. “Barbara” was less interested in arguing the finer points of constitutional law, Richwine learned, and more interested in collecting welfare.

A Biden “migrant” released into the country with her husband and kids after they were caught at the border, “Barbara” immediately stuck her nose in the welfare trough. She wanted to ensure that her children could do so as well.

Richwine’s detailed exposé also divulges how much illegal aliens rely on welfare.

I’m Here for the Welfare

As Richwine told commentator Ann Coulter for her Unsafe podcast, a reader won’t find anything about “Barbara” in the 194-page SCOTUS ruling that undermined the Constitution.

Rather, he mined a lower court ruling and dug up a nugget of gold.

“Barbara is the pseudonym of a Honduran national who, along with her husband and three children, entered the U.S. without a valid visa in 2024,” he learned:

Like millions of migrants during the Biden years, she and her family were “paroled” into the country pending an asylum application. Barbara became pregnant with her fourth child shortly after arriving.

Although she has no visa and could be deported when her parole expires, Barbara clearly intends to stay. “Our family has built a life here,” she attests. “We attend a local church. My children go to school here. We have a lot of family close by, like my father, cousin, and cousin’s family.” She says that failure to grant her future child citizenship would place her family “at risk of separation.”

Of course, “Barbara” claimed she wanted “her unborn child to receive all the benefits of citizenship.” But, alas and alack, she spilled the frijoles in a “supplemental declaration,” Richwine wrote, quoting it at length:

My child who is due in October will, if acknowledged to be a U.S. citizen, be eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and other benefits for which citizens are eligible. My husband and I do not have work authorization right now, so we live off of what little we have saved and family help. Given these financial constraints, the Executive Order threatens my child’s access to nutrition and healthcare services. Our family may be forced to make awful decisions, such as whether to forgo necessary medical care for our infant child, to divert money that is essential for food and shelter to cover our infant child’s medical expenses, or both. [Emphasis added by Richwine.]

Although the district judge ultimately granted class-certification only to the children themselves, he acknowledged Barbara’s interest in collecting means-tested benefits. He later noted, “Doubtless the parents of such children would suffer harms following from the denial of United States citizenship to their children, including, but likely not limited to, those detailed in the complaint.”

Richwine wondered why “Barbara” became pregnant again if she was so poor, and noted that other illegals could calculate free tax money and do the same thing. They might start popping out babies to get more tax money. 

That aside, “Barbara” sued to “increase her access to welfare, not to become eligible for the first time,” he wrote:

Even if her child did not become a citizen, she would have been entitled to emergency Medicaid for the birth, the [Women, Infants and Children] nutrition program for her and her child, and free school breakfast and lunch when the child is older. Birthright citizenship would allow Barbara to apply on behalf of her child for additional benefits — full Medicaid coverage for the child, food stamps (SNAP), housing subsidies, and possibly even cash assistance depending on state rules.

Richwine also noted that welfare supposedly targeted for children actually helps the parent. “Barbara” confessed as much “in her declaration when she warned that her family will have to ‘divert money’ if they do not receive the expected level of welfare for their child,” he wrote:

The fact that Barbara was willing to cite loss of projected welfare benefits as a reason she should be a class representative proves what most people already understand, which is that immigrant parents who seek welfare to support their children are themselves the recipients of welfare.

“She wants to collect that welfare on behalf of that child, in particular, food stamps and Medicaid,” Richwine told Coulter:

Keep in mind that you can already get some welfare benefits even if your child is not legal, or you can still collect emergency Medicaid for the birth, you can still get the [Women, Infants and Children] nutrition program, you can get preschool lunch. But with citizenship, you can also get food stamps, Medicaid coverage after the birth, and also maybe even cash assistance. So, you know, illegal immigration and welfare are very much interwoven. …

And now you have an illegal immigrant making it quite explicit in some legal filings.

On the Gravy Train

Having unveiled the real reason “Barbara” sued, Richwine reprised data from a CIS report that detailed how many illegals use welfare, stating that “61 percent of households headed by an illegal immigrant use at least one welfare program, compared to 51 percent of legal-immigrant households and 37 percent of native households.”

While illegals who run households personally receive significantly fewer taxpayer freebies, because members of the households are often citizens by birth, border-jumpers like “Barbara” get the benefit too. Again, they can divert resources to other priorities.

“High illegal-immigrant welfare use is not due to a lack of work opportunities,” Richwine observed:

Although Barbara attested she and her husband do not have work authorization, many illegal immigrants obviously work without it.

The bigger problem is not lack of work but basic ignorance, if not illiteracy — “the low level of education that they bring into a modern, first-world economy. Their average earnings are consequently too low for self-sufficiency.”

Bottom line: Since the day Biden let “Barbara” and her growing brood into the country, she has been a drain on American taxpayers.