President Donald Trump made good on another campaign promise on Monday, announcing a new rule to reduce the number of welfare-dependent immigrants becoming United States citizens.
“To protect benefits for American citizens, immigrants must be financially self-sufficient,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House on Monday.
The new regulation announced by the Trump administration ensures that legal residents are less likely to earn citizenship if they are on multiple welfare programs for an extended period of time.
The list of programs includes federal housing assistance, food stamps, and some forms of Medicare health benefits.
On his 2016 campaign website, Trump promised to “end welfare abuse” by both non-citizen households with legal status and illegal immigrants coming into the United States.
“Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.,” read a campaign statement on his immigration agenda.
Trump did not forget his promise, despite Democrats increasingly calling for more non-citizens and illegal immigrants to receive government welfare such as food stamps and health care.
“It’s time for Congress to enact a pro-American immigration agenda,” Trump said in Pensacola, Florida in December 2017, urging lawmakers to ensure “new immigrants to our country are financially self- sufficient and will not be on welfare the day they come in.”
In an interview with Breitbart News in March, Trump repeated his desire to keep immigrants dependent on welfare from permanently residing in the United States as citizens.
“I don’t want to have anyone coming in that’s on welfare,” Trump told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview in the Oval Office. “We have a problem, because we have politicians that are not strong, or they have bad intentions, or they want to get votes, because they think if they come in they’re going to vote Democrat, you know, for the most part.”
The Trump campaign hailed the president’s accomplishment on Monday.
“President Trump promised from day one to put American citizens first and reinforce the ideals of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility,” wrote Trump campaign Deputy Press Secretary Daniel C. Bucheli in a statement to Breitbart News. “The most recently announced policy is just one more example of this promise being fulfilled. We want to make sure that people coming to America can reach their version of the American dream through hard work and personal empowerment.”
Trump’s position on immigration is in stark contrast to Democrats running for president in 2020, as many of them signaled their support for free health care for illegal immigrants during a presidential primary debate in June.
“With the strongest economy in history, tax cuts and the best job market in recent memory, this administration’s policies are putting this within reach of every person willing to work for it—in direct contrast with Democrats’ position of open borders and providing illegal immigrants with free, taxpayer-funded healthcare,” Bucheli said.