President Trump just took another crucial step toward restoring sanity to our immigration system and making sure it works to America’s benefit rather than draining our country’s wealth.
In a recent memorandum, the president ordered authorities to enforce a Clinton-era law that required sponsors of welfare-dependent legal immigrants to reimburse the government for the benefits they receive. That law also requires the government to consider the income of a sponsor when a legal immigrant applies for welfare.
"To protect benefits for American citizens, immigrants must be financially self-sufficient," President Trump said in announcing the plan, making the common-sense point that even establishment politicians have acknowledged for decades.
The president is right, and the numbers prove it. According to a 2018 report from the Center for Immigration Studies, some 63% of “non-citizen households” access welfare programs of some kind — compared to only 35% of “native-headed households.”
Legal immigration is supposed to help, not burden, the U.S. economy — which is precisely why the Trump administration is fighting tooth and nail to reform our broken immigration system, which starts with enforcing our existing laws.