Immigration Issues

Welfare Attracts Elderly Immigrants

Under a law allowing unlimited immigration of citizens' parents, sons and daughters are bringing them into the country to get subsidized housing and collect welfare checks -- even though they pledged to immigration officials the parents would not become public charges.

Elderly immigrants on welfare primarily come from Asian countries.

  • One study puts the lifetime cost of each new elderly immigrant at roughly $150,000 -- even though few, if any, have paid taxes.

  • In fiscal year 1996, nearly 67,000 people 60 years old or older came into the U.S. legally -- more than 7 percent of all immigrants admitted.

  • From 1986 to 1994, the number of legal aliens on Supplemental Security Income -- the main cash welfare program used by older aliens -- grew an average of 15 percent a year.

  • By late 1995, immigrants accounted for almost one-third of the elderly on SSI -- a program benefiting those aged, blind or disabled persons who don't qualify for Social Security-- up from less than 6 percent in 1982.

While the 1996 federal welfare reform law cut non-citizens off from welfare benefits, this year's budget deal restored all benefits but food stamps to all immigrants -- young or old -- already living in the U.S.

  • The top federal SSI payment is $470 a month for an individual or $705 for a couple, with nearly all states adding to federal benefits.

  • Over the next five years the federal cost of elderly immigrants on SSI and Medicaid will total more than $7 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

  • More than one-third of immigrants over 65 who were sponsored for entry between 1980 and 1987 were on welfare in 1990, according to statistics from the University of California at Davis.

Source: David A. Price, "The World's Retirement Home?" Investor's Business Daily, August 21, 1997.

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