Open the gates.

• Author: Nowrasteh, Alex
• Position: National Affairs - Immigration policy

"Liberalizing immigration is so important to future economic growth in the U.S. and the rest of the world that barring means-tested welfare and entitlement programs to noncitizens and allowing more lawful immigration would be a tremendously beneficial shift in policy."

ECONOMISTS generally believe that immigration increases the size of the economy, improves productivity, and is an economic boon for almost all parties. Moreover, historically, immigration has been a net positive for the Federal budget, improving the long-run fiscal condition of the U.S. Changes to Federal laws, many of which are proposed in the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, could further improve the fiscal impact of future immigration.

Critics of immigration reform worry about immigrants disproportionately consuming public benefits. Instead, they should support legal changes to immigrant welfare eligibility. Eliminating immigrant welfare eligibility for Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), Supplemenial Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and other programs (such as unemployment) would, in the words of the Cato Institute's late chairman emeritus William Niskanen, "build a wall around the welfare state, not around the country."

Doing so would reduce immigrant welfare dependency and could increase the pace of intergenerational mobility among immigrants. Such measures also would be constitutional. Further, restricting immigrant access to welfare not only will advance sound public policy, it likely will improve the public's assessment of immigration reform overall.

The immigration reform bill excludes some immigrants from receiving Federal welfare, and prevents registered provisional immigrants, blue card holders, and the new guest workers from receiving Federal means-tested welfare benefits. Regardless of those barriers and existing ones, opponents of immigration reform are focusing on the supposed fiscal costs of immigration reform by assuming that welfare rolls would be swollen under the proposed reform, thus worsening the long-term fiscal shape of the U.S.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) expressed such concerns: "Many of the 11,000,000 undocumented people don't have high school diplomas. Making them eligible for welfare, social services, and health care will be hugely expensive."

Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.), now president of the Heritage Foundation, echoed Sessions' statement: "Delaying eligibility for Federal benefits to newly legalized immigrants merely puts off the day of reckoning. The truly enormous costs come when unauthorized immigrants start collecting retirement benefits."

The effects of immigration reform on welfare and the fiscal shape of the government are legitimate concerns. Every net new dollar spent on welfare worsens the fiscal condition of the Federal government, sustains debilitating dependency, and creates labor market rigidities. Immigration historically has been a net positive for the Treasury over the long ran, but decreasing immigrant welfare use through legal reforms will increase the fiscal benefits of immigration reform in the short and medium runs, too.

Generally, low-income immigrants have lower rates of welfare use than low-income native-born citizens and receive smaller benefits when they are the beneficiaries. However, all immigrants are more likely to receive means-tested welfare benefits than all native-born Americans because immigrants are poorer on average. Immigrants pay more into Medicare Part A than they currently receive in benefits because they are less likely to be of benefit-receiving age than native-born Americans. They will have even less access to benefits under the proposed immigration reform bill than they currently do--out that alone does not deter criticism that immigrants will abuse the welfare state.

The biggest concern that Americans have about unauthorized immigration, shared by 44% of those polled in a recent survey, is that unauthorized immigrants are overburdening government services. A similar poll from three years ago found that 84% of Americans were concerned that immigrants are overburdening government services. In 2010, 86% of Republicans, 64% of Democrats, and 76% of Independents agreed with the statement that "Illegal immigrants do more to weaken the U.S. economy because they don't all pay taxes but use public services." In the same year, 84% of respondents either were "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" that "illegal immigrants might be putting an unfair burden on U.S. schools, hospitals, and government services."

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