It stands as an undeniable truth, to any American with an ounce of common sense, that illegal aliens should not be receiving taxpayer-funded government benefits. Naturally, we are not savages, and emergency medical care for life-threatening conditions remains a principle of medical ethics. But beyond that crucial line, the answer is a resounding NO.
No Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. No Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT). No disability payments, no welfare, no anything. These individuals are in our country illegally, and the only thing the United States owes them is a one-way ticket home. Our hard-earned taxpayer dollars are for American citizens, not for those who have defied our laws to enter our nation.
The bipartisan 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, signed into law by Democrat President Bill Clinton, contained critical provisions. It unequivocally required states receiving federal welfare funds – which is all of them – to report any known illegal aliens to the Department of Homeland Security. However, just two years later, the Clinton administration, in a move that can only be described as a deliberate softening of the law, attempted to gut this requirement. They claimed the reporting obligation applied only to specific state agencies managing programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), SNAP, or EBT, effectively creating a massive loophole.
Now, under President Trump’s unwavering America First agenda, that egregious loophole is being slammed shut. The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued a powerful opinion, making this long-overdue correction official. This is about accountability and ensuring our laws mean what they say.
Congress overhauled the national welfare system when it enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105 ("PRWORA"). As part of its effort to ensure that ineligible noncitizens would not receive welfare benefits, Congress attached reporting requirements to certain federal benefits programs. See id. § 404, 110 Stat. at 2267. Under section 404, federal agencies administering such programs must inform the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") of any person they know to be not lawfully present in the United States. Section 404 also obliges any participating "State" to report any person that the "State" knows to be not lawfully present.
The 1998 Clinton administration’s rollback deliberately twisted the intent of the original legislation.
In 1998, this Office narrowly construed the term "State" as used in section 404 to refer only to the "state agencies administering the particular federally funded program," rather than all component agencies within the State. Construction of State Reporting Requirements in Section 404 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, 22 Op. O.L.C. 204, 205 (1998) ("1998 Opinion") (emphasis omitted). We reached that view by disregarding PRWORA's definition of "State" and giving that term inconsistent meanings within the same statutory provision.
Thankfully, the Trump OLC has rectified this bureaucratic obfuscation, redefining "State" to mean, precisely, the state—all of it, as originally intended:
Any participating state must report to DHS any person that the state knows to be not lawfully present. And "State," as used in section 404, includes all component agencies, not only the state agency administering a covered federal benefits program. This reading follows from PRWORA's express statutory definition of "State" and accords with well-established interpretive canons. It also finds ample support in statutory context and structure. We therefore determine that the mandatory reporting obligations in section 404(b) and (c) apply to all component agencies within a "State" and withdraw our contrary 1998 Opinion as inconsistent with PRWORA's unambiguous commands.
This long-overdue correction aligns perfectly with the common-sense intent of the 1996 welfare reform act, a bipartisan measure signed by a Democrat president, demonstrating how far the Left has strayed from basic principles of national sovereignty and fiscal responsibility.
Such selective redefinition is a hallmark tactic of the radical Left, consistently seeking to undermine bipartisan laws and expand the scope of government handouts to non-citizens. While our bloated federal bureaucracy makes it a monumental task to identify and dismantle all such detrimental policies, the expectation that Democrat-governed states will continue to shield illegal aliens from accountability remains. Time and again, we witness leftist politicians and their functionaries going to extreme lengths to protect those who have broken our immigration laws, regardless of the severity of their actions.
With this decisive action, another critical leak has been plugged, safeguarding American taxpayers and upholding the rule of law. Yet, countless more such loopholes, crafted by those who prioritize globalist agendas over national interest, undoubtedly remain. The fight to secure our borders and ensure our laws serve American citizens, not illegal immigrants, continues relentlessly under the America First banner.
