As the Trump administration continues to clean up the administrative state, the Department of Justice just landed a potentially significant victory. In a major reversal, the Department of Justice has discarded a decades-old interpretation of a law that essentially allowed illegal aliens to collect welfare benefits.
In a 20-page slip opinion bearing Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser’s signature, the Department of Justice reversed its reading of “federal means-tested public benefit” in light of last year’s overturn of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc.
‘The existence of such reliance on federal welfare contradicts the textually expressed congressional policy that aliens must not rely on taxpayer support or burden the public benefits system.’
The previous interpretation, stemming from the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 under Democratic President Bill Clinton, extended welfare to illegal aliens by splitting hairs between mandatory and discretionary spending. The DOJ previously directed the Departments of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development to interpret this phrase to allow the extension of benefits to illegal aliens under discretionary benefit programs.
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The new opinion rules that the PRWORA includes benefits under both mandatory and discretionary spending programs and withdraws the preceding 1997 opinion, effectively closing this loophole that allowed illegal aliens to collect welfare benefits.
The opinion notes that the PRWORA had many other parts that would seem to resist the old interpretation, particularly since the relevant section of the law was enacted “to address abuse of the welfare system by aliens in the United States.”
The opinion says that despite this clearly stated purpose, the old interpretation led to unrestricted discretionary funds flowing to illegal aliens over the ensuing decades from “many federal agencies.”
“Today, by some estimates, 59% of illegal alien-headed households receive government welfare,” the opinion reads, citing the director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies.
“While some aliens may have come to rely on means-tested public benefits funded through discretionary spending programs, the existence of such reliance on federal welfare contradicts the textually expressed congressional policy that aliens must not rely on taxpayer support or burden the public benefits system,” the opinion continued.
“American taxpayers have interests, too, in ensuring that their tax contributions do not encourage illegal entry into the United States. Americans are entitled to rely on duly enacted legislation crafted by their elected representatives and designed to protect the public fisc from abuse.”
The Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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