President Joe Biden is opening the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to illegal aliens enrolled in former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
On Friday, Biden issued a final rule that will open Obamacare rolls to some DACA illegal aliens enrolled in the program. Obama first created the DACA program via executive order, shielding more than a million illegal aliens from deportation through the years.
Previously, Center for Immigration Studies researchers estimated that the cost of opening Obamacare and Medicaid rolls to illegal aliens would cost American taxpayers about $4,600 per illegal alien.
At this rate, Obamacare and Medicaid for DACA illegal aliens has the potential to cost American taxpayers roughly $2.8 billion every year. At the same time, more than 25 million Americans are expected to be uninsured today.
Biden said in a statement:
Nearly twelve years ago, President Obama and I announced the DACA program to allow our young people to live and work in the only country they’ve called home. Since then, DACA has provided more than 800,000 Dreamers with the ability to work lawfully, pursue an education, and contribute their immense talents to make our communities better and stronger. [Emphasis added]
I’m proud of the contributions of Dreamers to our country and committed to providing Dreamers the support they need to succeed. That’s why I’ve previously directed the Department of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to “preserve and fortify” DACA. And that’s why today we are taking this historic step to ensure that DACA recipients have the same access to health care through the Affordable Care Act as their neighbors. [Emphasis added]
Biden had first announced the initiative to score DACA illegal aliens tax breaks via Obamacare in April of last year. At the time, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas praised the move.
Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), as well as several House Republicans, had lobbied Biden to drop the plan last year, but the administration moved forward anyway.
In his 2012 State of the Union Address, Obama vowed to Americans that illegal aliens would not be eligible for Obamacare, to which Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted, “You lie!”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.