President Donald Trump signs an executive order. Jan. 20, 2025. (Credit: Evan Vucci/AP)
President Donald Trump has ordered his agencies to scrub their regulations and spending programs to ensure illegal migrants are not getting taxpayers’ funds via hidden channels.
Trump signed the Executive Order titled “Preserving Federal Benefits for American Citizens” late on Wednesday.
The policy could save tens of billions of dollars per year. But the full economic impact will not be known for many months because Trump’s deputies must find the aid programs, change policies to stop some funding. fend off lawsuits, and then gradually rewrite regulations to stop more funding.
Democrats will furiously protest Trump’s aid cutoff because the cash flows through their vast and vital farm teams of supporters at government agencies and non-profits.
Democrats also support the funding because it attracts migrants to the United States. The aid also deters them from going home by anchoring them to U.S. society via subsidized jobs, housing, schooling, government credentials, and political support.
But the aid cutoff will also help the Democrats’ media allies to attack Trump’s popular migration policies by spotlighting pitiable migrants — for example, mothers with children — on the evening TV news shows.
The illegal migrant population in the United States is at least 13.7 million, many of whom have crowded into Democratic-run states — California and Illinois, for example — that provide healthcare and other aid to illegal migrants.
A White House fact sheet said:
The surge in illegal immigration, enabled by the previous Administration, is siphoning dollars and essential services from American citizens while state and local budgets grow increasingly strained.
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According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), providing welfare to one million illegal aliens could cost American taxpayers an additional $3 billion annually.
The U.S. House Homeland Security Committee estimated that taxpayers could pay as much as $451 billion to care for [roughly 9 million] illegal aliens and gotaways that have entered the United States unlawfully since January 2021.