From Day One, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has repeatedly promised that no illegal immigrants would receive any federal benefits if his Schumer-Rubio immigration bill became law. “Temporary-status immigrants will be barred from receiving federal benefits, and this legislation extends that prohibition to include ObamaCare,” a FAQ on Rubio’s website reads.
But the Congressional Budget Office begs to differ. It notes that the actual legislative language in Schumer-Rubio is far less clear than Rubio lets on. And the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected an amendment sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that would have made it crystal clear that currently illegal immigrants were ineligible for all federal means-tested welfare programs. The CBO concludes:
As a result of this reading, the CBO found that over the next ten years, Schumer-Rubio would result in $82.3 billion more in Obamacare subsidies, $29.3 billion more in Medicaid spending, $6 billion more in food stamp spending, $5.1 billion more in unemployment insurance spending and $3.5 billion more in child nutrition spending. Newly legalized immigrants would also be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which would cost the federal government $126.8 billion.
All told, the CBO estimates that Schumer-Rubio would grow government spending by $258.9 billion. And none of that total includes the cost of the additional border-security items in the bill.
