Current State
Current State
Migration is built into the core fabric of this country, with immigrants making up a significant proportion of the US population, contributing billions of dollars into tax revenue, and being core players in our economic and social well-being.(1) One in seven U.S. residents is an immigrant, while one in eight residents is a native-born U.S. citizen with at least one immigrant parent.(2) In 2018, one in six workers in the United State, 28.4 million workers, were immigrants.(3) Immigrant-led households contributed a total of $308.6 billion in federal taxes and $150 billion in combined state and local taxes in 2018; and undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $20.1 billion in federal taxes and $11.8 billion in combined state and local taxes in 2018, with DACA residents contributing an estimated $1.7 billion in combined state and local taxes in 2018.(4)
Despite indisputable contributions of immigrant communities to this country, there has been a history of mistreatment and criminalization of immigrants and migration; with an accelerated erosion of immigrant rights under the Trump administration. Central to those rights are the rights to access public benefits such as housing, health care, income and food assistance, and education.
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, [PRWORA PL 104-193], codified severe restrictions on documented immigrants' ability to access public benefits and banned undocumented immigrants’ ability to access almost any public benefits. Leaving millions without access to critical services such as food assistance, disability insurance, income assistance, and healthcare, despite their contributions to the economic and social well-being of the country. These restrictions include:(5)
SNAP benefits (Food Stamps) for the first five years of being a qualified immigrant, with few exceptions and a complete ban for undocumented immigrants
SSI until citizenship, with few exceptions
TANF, Medicaid (other than for emergency medical assistance), and CHIP for the first five years of being a qualified immigrant with few exceptions and a complete ban for undocumented immigrants
PRWORA and Section 214 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1980 also has a direct effect on immigrants’ access to housing and homelessness resources, leaving millions of immigrants without any access critical housing resources despite their contributions to the economic and social well-being of the country, The restrictions include:(6)
Restricting most federally funded public housing and rental assistance programs to qualified immigrant groups including, legal permanent residents, Refugees, and victims of trafficking and domestic abuse. Undocumented immigrants, DACA residents and Temporary Protected Status holders are not deemed eligible and therefore not eligible for most federally funded housing programs
Restricting assistance to mix-status families, meaning families who have both qualified immigrants and non-qualified immigrants in the household, to only offering the assistance to those members who are deemed qualified; making for complicated regulations and limitations in needed assistance
Federally funded homelessness programs mostly fall into the federal life and safety exception to PRWORA, meaning that shelters and homelessness should be offered regardless of immigration status.(7)
These restrictions were compounded by a racially driven Trump administration rule on public charge that was recently rescinded by the Biden Administration.(8) The rescinded rule would have negatively affected an immigrant's ability to gain citizenship if they utilized qualified public benefits. Although the rule has been rescinded, it caused immense fear in immigrant communities to access critical public benefits and put millions at risk of not accessing needed food, medical, and housing benefits.
At the same time that the federal government has continued to attack immigrant communities' access to public benefits under the false guise of fiscal responsibility, it has created a federal law enforcement agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with a $6 billion dollar annual budget. The ICE and Border Patrol have been plagued by human rights violations including substandard detention centers, medical care, and deadly immigration raids,(9) while taking critical funding from programs and supports that could offer life-saving public benefits to immigrant communities.
Immigration status also drastically reduced access to higher education (10) and employment opportunities. DACA and undocumented immigrants do not have access to federal student loans and often are restricted from many other forms of financial assistance to attend higher education. Immigrant communities must also navigate a complex set of laws to receive authorization to work, with undocumented immigrants having no pathways to legal work authorization. This leaves millions of workers to be exploited every year in this country by way of ICE worker raid, wage theft, harassment, and other forms of worker discrimination.(11)