Earlier: NPR-Ipsos Poll: Majority Believes The Invasion At The Southwest Border Is An Invasion
In a recent item about NPR not liking Americans calling an invasion an invasion, NPR claimed that it was a myth that immigrants use welfare. NPR did the modern thing of calling wrongthink a ”false statement” with no regard for the actual facts:
.@NPR calls it a "false statement" (which 38% of people believe) that "Immigrants are more likely to use public assistance benefits than the U.S.-born population"
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) August 19, 2022
It is not a false statment. https://t.co/eKcuc2i3nk https://t.co/QHVErHDNO9
Mickey Kaus was linking to a September 2021 paper by CIS expert Steven A. Camarota (he could have linked to many such papers over the last 20-40 years) but Camarota has provided an update, throwing NPR’s ”falsely” back in their face:
NPR Falsely Claims High Immigrant Welfare Use is a Myth
By Steven A. Camarota, CIS.org. August 20, 2022
A new NPR opinion poll (by Ipos) and accompanying article argues that many Americans wrongly believe immigrants use “public benefits” at higher rates than the U.S.-born. NPR should have done its homework, as it is certainly not “false and misleading” to think that immigrant households make heavy use of welfare programs. In fact, it is well established that immigrant-headed households access most public benefit programs at higher rates than native-headed households.
NPR cites no data to support its position. Instead, it simply states that many immigrants are barred from welfare programs. However, most legal immigrants have lived in the country long enough to access welfare or have become citizens. Moreover, all legal immigrants and even illegal immigrants can receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children. An analysis of the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) by the Center published last year, based on data collected before Covid-19, shows that immigrant households use nearly every type of welfare program at higher rates than U.S.-born households.
The heavy use of welfare programs by immigrant households is not because immigrants are lazy and don’t work, nor it is because they all came to get welfare. Rather, a larger share of immigrants have modest levels of education and are more likely to be poor. As a result, immigrants are more likely than the U.S.-born to turn to taxpayers to support themselves or their children. [More, emphasis added.]
Another way of putting this conclusion would be to say:
"The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems… When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. They are not sending you. They are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs and they are bringing crime, and they’re rapists."
“Some, I assume are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we are getting,” Trump continued. “They are not sending us the right people. [Emphasis added]
That’s what Donald Trump said on June 16, 2015, and he hasn’t been proven wrong. Remember, while Trump was talking about illegals crossing the Southern Border, the same is true, as Camarota points out above, of legal immigrants from uneducated Third World countries.
The typical Mexican, South American, or Central American immigrant will use more in government services over his lifetime than he’ll pay in taxes.
The US is importing poverty, which benefits no one but the employers of cheap labor.
Our analysis of Census data last year, based on data collected before Covid-19, shows that immigrant households use nearly every type of welfare program at higher rates than U.S.-born households. https://t.co/TqCvs260lU via @CIS_org
— Jessica Vaughan (@JessicaV_CIS) August 21, 2022
