On Thursday, the Biden Administration announced its intention to expand healthcare access for illegal aliens, at a cost to the American taxpayers.
As reported by ABC News, the Biden White House’s proposed new rule would give access to the public health programs Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (known as “Obamacare”) to illegal aliens who are eligible for amnesty through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The rule would change the definition of “lawful presence” so that access to such health programs would be available to DACA illegals who are still not legal citizens.
“Health care should be a right, not a privilege, and my administration’s worked hard to expand health care. And today, more Americans have health insurance than ever,” said Joe Biden said in a pre-recorded video announcement. “Today’s announcement is about giving DACA recipients the same opportunity.”
Amnesty advocates and other far-left activists praised the decision, repeating false claims that DACA illegals play a crucial role in the American economy.
“These were people who were providing health care, or providing other types of care, helping keep small businesses open and ensuring that people had food to eat,” said Sergio Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Immigration Hub. “At the same time, many of these same individuals who were part of our frontline workforce during the pandemic, they themselves were left behind unable to access many of the assistance programs that the rest of us were able to access.”
“Not only was this just completely unfair and unjust, but it also makes no sense,” Gonzalez continued. “When we have healthier people and we have people who are able to access health care that moves the entire country forward. That ensures that we have healthier communities at large.”
The new rule change drew backlash from conservatives, with Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) denouncing it as “rewarding illegal immigration,” and a move that “will bring more illegal immigration” by adding healthcare access as an incentive to illegally come into the United States.
“This is an insult to American citizenship,” Cotton added.
There are at least 580,000 official recipients of the DACA program, who came into the country illegally as minors. At least 800,000 illegals overall have benefited to some degree from DACA, which was controversially implemented as an executive order by President Barack Obama, after efforts to pass the program through congressional legislation ultimately failed. As such, DACA has faced numerous legal challenges on the constitutionality of its implementation; one challenge is currently being heard in a district court in Texas, after U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen ruled in 2021 that the program was indeed unconstitutional.
A federal appeals court upheld Judge Hanen’s decision, but allowed protections to remain in place for current recipients while the lower court reviews the latest efforts by the Biden Administration to use administrative law to codify DACA. As a result, new applicants are forbidden from applying for the program while current recipients are still allowed to renew their status every two years.