President Obama’s new amnesty will allow illegal immigrants who are approved to get Social Security and Medicare benefits, the Congressional Budget Office confirmed Thursday in a new report that predicted more than 2 million illegal immigrants will be granted amnesty by 2017.
Mr. Obama in November announced a new amnesty for parents of children who are citizens or legal permanent residents of the U.S., and announced an expansion of his 2012 amnesty for so-called Dreamers, who are illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. The president’s new program would grant them “deferred action,” which means canceling any danger of deportation and giving them work permits to compete for jobs.
The CBO said about 1.5 million parents will qualify under the new amnesty for parents by 2017, while 150,000 will qualify under the expanded Dream Act policy. That’s in addition to the 600,000 who qualified under the initial 2012 Dream Act policy. All told, that means 2.25 million illegal immigrants will be living in temporary legal status thanks to the amnesty.
Those figures are about half the total number that the Obama administration said would be eligible for deferred action.
Because they are entitled to work permits, the CBO, which is the government’s official scorekeeper, said they will be eligible for Medicare and Social Security benefits, and can also claim the Earned Income Tax Credit.
“Because they are lawfully present during the period of their deferred status, they are eligible to receive Medicare and Social Security benefits if they meet the programs’ requirements,” the CBO said in its report. “In addition, those individuals who are approved for deferred action and receive work authorization have Social Security numbers and therefore can claim the earned income tax credit if they qualify. They are ineligible for other federal benefit programs.”
The CBO report laid out a number of different options Congress could take on immigration policy, ranging from legalizing most illegal immigrants, as a 2013 Senate bill called for, or stepping up enforcement, as many House Republicans have called for.
The budget analysts said the exact effects of each policy could vary widely, though adding more workers through legalization would generally grow the economy faster, while stiffening enforcement could hurt federal revenue because it could chase some workers deeper into the shadows, meaning employers will pay them off the books.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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