McCAUGHEY: Rewrite immigration laws to favour educated, skilled newcomers who won’t burden taxpayers

The biggest loophole is that they can take benefits on behalf of their American-born children, who are citizens because of birthright citizenship

Published Apr 12, 2026  •  Last updated 25 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Signs sit available for protesters to demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court as U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to attend oral arguments on April 01, 2026 in Washington, DC. Photo by Heather Diehl /Getty Images

More than half of immigrant households in the U.S. use welfare, costing taxpayers billions and making the programs less sustainable for Americans in need.

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Blame birthright citizenship for a big part of the cost, but don’t count on the Supreme Court to fix it.

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Republicans in Congress need to act and they should do it quickly while they’re still in the majority.

Federal law bars legal immigrants from taking welfare benefits until they’ve been in the country for five years and bars illegal immigrants from benefits completely. But both groups manage to circumvent that law and qualify for a wide range of costly handouts, including subsidized housing, Medicaid and food assistance.

The biggest loophole is that they can take benefits on behalf of their American-born children, who are citizens because of birthright citizenship.

Last week, when the Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump v. Barbara — the birthright citizenship case — they were emphatic that their ruling would rest on history and legal precedent, not modern-day problems.

When President Donald Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, argued that we are living in a “new world” with immigration laws and problems such as birth tourism and illegal border crossings, Chief Justice John Roberts snapped back that the world may be new, but it’s “the same Constitution.”

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That indicates birthright citizenship is likely here to stay.

Congress must act

The president is taking major steps to reduce the burden on Americans by closing the border and attempting to enforce existing laws that already bar immigrants who may become “public charges” from getting green cards to stay permanently.

But Congress must act. It’s long past time to change U.S. immigration law to favour admitting legal immigrants who are educated and have earning potential.

The U.S. could boost its economy, drastically reduce its spending on welfare and ease cultural stress by admitting immigrants based on their likely economic value. Think of a points system that rewards English proficiency, formal education and work history.

A typical 30-year-old immigrant with a bachelor’s degree will reduce the national debt by $1.6 million over the next 30 years, estimates Manhattan Institute’s Daniel Di Martino. But an immigrant without a high school diploma costs the Treasury an estimated $130,000 over that same time.

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Right now, U.S. policy favours family attachments and sheer chance — a lottery — instead of a sane policy of prioritizing self-sufficient immigrants.

The immigrants who come to America are, in general, not lazy. They’re more likely to be employed than American citizens. But lack of education keeps them stuck in low-paying jobs. After they get here, they have children they are unable to support, so they turn to the welfare system.

Denying medical and food benefits to families with children is understandably unpopular. The smarter approach is to revamp our immigration laws.

Republicans likely to favour the change are in a slim majority in Congress. But the budgetary impact of the change is so large that the legislation should be eligible for “reconciliation status,” meaning it can be enacted as part of the federal budget with a simple majority instead of 60 votes in the Senate.

They should get busy and pass a change before the midterm elections.

Taxpayers have had enough

Today, 53% of immigrant households consume welfare benefits paid for by taxpayers, compared with 37% of households headed by an American-born adult.

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Immigrants here 10 years or more are just as likely to be taking benefits as those newly arrived. That is economic suicide for our country. It must be changed.

In the meantime, Trump is using his executive powers to stop the flow of welfare-dependent immigrants into the country and deny permanent green-card status to immigrants already here who depend on welfare for themselves or their children.

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In 2019, he invoked a long-ignored federal law against admitting anyone likely to become a “public charge.” He told consular officers around the globe to require economic self-sufficiency before granting visas and ordered the Department of Homeland Security to deny permanent status to anyone who had used benefits for themselves or family members after entering the U.S.

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Former president Joe Biden revoked Trump’s order, but Trump restored it in November 2025. Immediately, immigrant advocacy groups sounded the alarm that Trump’s rule could “jeopardize the use of public benefits by the U.S.-citizen children of immigrants.”

That’s absolutely true. And it’s the right thing to do. American taxpayers have had enough. But to make the changes permanent, Congress needs to act. Otherwise, a future president, with Biden’s “give away the store to immigrants” mentality, will doom us to ever-higher taxes to support a growing population of foreign-born dependents and their American-born children.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant-governor of New York State

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