New York has billions for unemployed illegal aliens

As inflation in America soars, our federal and state governments are forcing America’s squeezed taxpayers to fund people who refuse to work and illegal aliens. For months, now, we’ve been aware that people are still sucking up stimulus money but refusing to work despite the seemingly endless supply of available jobs. Now, in New York State, they’ll be joined by illegal aliens who can apply to receive money from a $2.1 billion fund specifically set up to give taxpayer money to illegal aliens and “nontraditional workers.” In this way, Democrat states contribute to America’s dissolution as a sovereign nation.

Let’s start with the stimulus to put New York’s policy into its proper perspective. When it comes to the stimulus, we all know that people are being paid not to work. I spoke with a relative today who told me that a friend of hers is living very frugally and saving money.

“Good for him,” I answered. “What job does he have?”

“Oh,” she said, “he doesn’t have a job. He hasn’t worked since last March. He’s getting stimulus checks. So is his girlfriend. And they’re not paying rent, so they can put money in their savings every month.”

“Why isn’t he working?”

“He doesn’t want to.”

My relative had taken this friend’s status for granted but, as she described it to me, she realized it was very wrong. However, neither she nor I blamed the friend for doing what he was doing. The jobs he qualifies for are relatively menial. He doesn’t have a career trajectory.

For someone like him, if the choice is between a not-very-nice job and a government paycheck, he’ll take the paycheck every time. And he’s smart to save the extra money given that, sooner or later, whether because taxpayers rebel or because the U.S. bankrupts itself, those checks are going to stop coming.  

In New York State, that same perverse incentive is now coming for illegal aliens:

New York’s Excluded Workers Fund, which is intended to provide much-needed relief to workers cut off from government unemployment benefits and stimulus checks during the pandemic, is now open.

Any workers — including undocumented immigrants — who weren’t eligible for unemployment benefits, can apply. The funds do not need to be paid back.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers in Albany created the historic $2.1 billion fund to assist undocumented and nontraditional workers as part of last-minute state budget negotiations in April. The state recently released the official regulations laying out what it will take to qualify.

Apparently, crime does pay. Why do I say that? Because, if you think it through as I forced my relative to do with regard to her friend, illegal aliens, having broken into our country are getting huge state or federal taxpayer-funded benefits:

A FAIR study in 2017 found illegal immigrants are a net consumer of taxpayer benefits worth more than $100 billion a year, not including the cost of enforcing the border.

While federal benefits are supposed to be off limits, in practice many are not. More than 25,000 undocumented workers receive subsidized housing, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Children receive free education and most qualify for English lessons and free school breakfast and lunch.

Illegal immigrants do not qualify for Obamacare but under federal law, hospitals and clinics are required to provide urgent medical care without regard to legal status. Pregnant women are entitled to prenatal and postpartum care under the Women, Infants and Children program. Infant delivery costs are paid for by Medicaid. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found a federal-state immigrant insurance program cost $2 billion a year in emergency treatment, not including the $1.24 billion in infant delivery expenses.

Illegal immigrants are not entitled to food stamps, but families with U.S.-born children are. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 31% of such families use the SNAP program and more than 50% of Central American families in the U.S. use at least one welfare program.

In addition to the above federal benefits, the same article details the innumerable state benefits illegal aliens receive – benefits that will now include no-strings money from the good taxpayers of New York. And all of this is for people who have no right to be here and who are taking jobs and housing away from American citizens, and who often negatively affecting the education of those same citizens’ children.

Just as I did not blame the young man for his unemployment, I do not blame the millions who will enter our country illegally this year now that Biden -- violating his constitutional obligation to defend America against foreign invasion and to abide by the law – is inviting them in. All these people are making perfectly rational choices.

The problem is the mostly illegal and always perverse incentives that our federal and state governments are offering. They entice able-bodied people into sloth and dependency and burden the economy with illiterate, often sick immigrants who do not share American values and are here only to become future Democrat voters.

IMAGE: Composed of Money in Hand and public domain images of Treasury checks and the American flag.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com