NH AG Touts Win In Case Blocking Obamacare Subsidies For Illegal Immigrants

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

Attorney General John M. Formella announced Wednesday that a federal court blocked a Biden administration attempt to make a select group of illegal immigrants eligible for taxpayer funded Obamacare subsidies.

At issue was a Biden rule that would have allowed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to access subsidized healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.

“This is a victory for the rule of law and for taxpayers,” said Formella. “The rule would have allowed hundreds of thousands of individuals, who are not legally in the U.S., to access ACA benefits. The statutes in place clearly prohibit individuals in this situation from receiving federal benefits, and this new ruling reaffirms that these laws must be upheld.”

Formella was part of a coalition of 18 other state attorneys general in challenging the rule. The court granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the coalition.

Attitudes toward illegal immigration have shifted among Americans in response to a record surge of unauthorized border crossings on Biden’s watch. According to The New York Times, immigration hit an all-time record during the Biden surge, “surpassing the great immigration boom of the late 1800s and early 1900s,” the Times reported.

As a result, the share of foreign-born U.S. residents hit a new record of 15.2 percent last year, surpassing the 14.8 percent reached in 1890.

Donald Trump’s victory is attributed in part to support for his immigration policies, including plans for “mass deportations” beginning with illegal aliens who’ve also broken other laws or are ignoring previous court rulings ordering them out of the U.S.

Polls show a majority of Americans support mass deportations. Polls also show Americans oppose giving illegal immigrants taxpayer-funded benefits like welfare and subsidized health care.

A 2019 CNN poll found 59 percent of Americans oppose government healthcare benefits for illegal immigrants, for example.

And yet immigrants, both legal and illegal, are disproportionately likely to receive means-tested government benefits compared to native-born Americans. That’s the finding of a study by the Center for Immigration Studies.

“Analysis of this data shows both immigrants and the U.S.-born make extensive use of means-tested anti-poverty programs, with immigrant households significantly more likely to receive benefits. This is primarily because the American welfare system is designed in large part to help low-income families with children, which describes a large share of immigrants,” CIS reported.

“The ability of immigrants, including illegal immigrants, to receive welfare benefits on behalf of U.S.-born citizen children is a key reason why restrictions on welfare use for new legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants, are relatively ineffective.”

The net result, says the Federation for American Immigration Reform, is that the “annual net burden on the U.S. economy” of illegal immigration is more than $150 billion.

Formella and his fellow attorneys general argued that the Biden administration rule allowing DACA recipients to qualify for Obamacare subsidies violated the 1996 welfare reform law. That law bars illegal immigrants from receiving federal benefits, and that the ACA itself requires individuals to be “lawfully present” in the U.S. to qualify for subsidized healthcare.

In addition to Attorney General Formella, attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia supported the legal challenge.

“We are committed to protecting both the integrity of our immigration laws and the interests of American taxpayers,” Formella concluded. “We’ll keep fighting to ensure that taxpayer dollars are protected, and the law is followed.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.