Many illegal aliens who are not eligible for SNAP benefits were nonetheless saved from scrambling for food Friday when a judge forced funding for the program to continue in November.
Both the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) have been under threat as the budget impasse in Congress continues. SNAP was slated for suspension on Nov. 1 when the federal SNAP funding mechanism ran out. An appropriation bill must be passed to fund it.
But Judge Indira Talwani has ordered the USDA to use contingency funds to pay for SNAP at least partially, and to find more funds to fully fund it. “And while these contingency funds reportedly are insufficient to cover the entire cost of SNAP for November, [the USDA] also may supplement the Contingency Funds by authorizing a transfer of additional funds,” Indira wrote Friday.
A better solution would be to end the government shutdown and pass an appropriation bill to fund the government (a solution Democrats are loath to adopt). But while government workers miss paychecks and federal services are shut down, taxpayers are still feeding many illegal aliens.
Data from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) shows that many households led by illegal aliens who are not personally eligible for SNAP would be hit if a SNAP free food freeze is ever allowed to happen. In many cases they have been receiving SNAP for their children, born in the U.S. after the mother illegally entered or overstayed in the U.S.
Yes, the SNAP program is so generous that it feeds people living in a home who are not eligible for the program.
The “S” in SNAP stands for supplemental. No one should use SNAP as 100 percent of their household food budget. But at full benefit, they easily could, and it looks like many do. CIS estimated that 59 percent of illegal alien-led households use one or more welfare programs — cash, food assistance, Medicaid, or housing. And 17 percent of illegal immigrant households use SNAP.
The maximum 2025 SNAP benefit for a family of four is $975 a month. That is $11,700 in free food a year, or $225 to spend a week. Let’s say the mother is an illegal alien ineligible for SNAP, but her three kids born in the U.S. can get SNAP. They would get the maximum SNAP benefit for a family of three, which is $768 a month, $9,216 a year, or $177 a week. It is enough to feed mom off the books.
“Many immigrants have modest levels of education and low incomes, so suspension of WIC and SNAP will impact a large share of this population,” CIS wrote in its analysis. “But this situation raises important policy questions, including whether it makes sense to have an immigration system that allows in so many people who turn to taxpayers to support their children.”
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
