Former President Donald Trump is accusing President Joe Biden of robbing Social Security and Medicaid benefits from American seniors by granting a “mass amnesty” to more than half a million illegal aliens who may become eligible for such benefits.
On Tuesday, Biden issued two executive amnesties for illegal aliens. The first, and more expansive of the two, will allow roughly 500,000 illegal aliens to obtain green cards so long as they have resided in the United States for at least a decade and are married to an American citizen.
In addition, about 50,000 migrant children, whose illegal alien parent is married to an American citizen, will also be able to apply for green cards. Altogether, the amnesty ensures that at least half a million illegal aliens will eventually be eligible for naturalized American citizenship.
The second amnesty will provide work visas to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, including those enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, who have graduated from American universities.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the amnesty ensures that hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens will be added to Social Security and Medicaid rolls, straining the program for its intended beneficiaries: American seniors.
“Biden’s mass amnesty plan will undoubtedly lead to a greater surge in migrant crime, cost taxpayers millions of dollars they cannot afford, overwhelm public services, and steal Social Security and Medicare benefits from American seniors to fund benefits for illegals — draining the programs Americans paid into their entire working lives,” Leavitt said.
“Biden has created another invitation for illegal immigration through his mass amnesty order,” she continued.
Indeed, amnesty for illegal aliens “would impose steep costs on the trust funds for two reasons,” Jason Richwine at the Center for Immigration Studies notes:
First, as described above, many illegal immigrants are already paying into the system. Their contributions are in fact part of the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline budgetary forecasts. Amnesty would require the government to bear the added cost of these recipients’ status as new beneficiaries without the added revenue that would normally come from new contributors. [Emphasis added]
Second, illegal immigrants tend to earn less and work fewer years in the U.S. than the average participant, meaning amnesty will provide them an above-average return on their contributions. [Emphasis added]
Richwine’s research suggests that amnesty would turn illegal aliens “into net drains who receive more in benefits than they contribute in taxes,” thus straining Social Security and Medicaid.
“If 10 million illegal immigrants receive amnesty, the total cost to Social Security and Medicare would be roughly $1.3 trillion, equivalent to a one-time transfer of 6 percent of GDP,” Richwine writes, indicating that the cost to Social Security and Medicare due to Biden’s amnesty could be as high as $71 billion.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.