The Frank
Home
Today's Fastrack
About
Subscribe
HHS Bans Illegal Migrants from Receiving Benefits

HHS Bans Illegal Migrants from Receiving Benefits

author
author

The Frank Staff

The Frank Staff.
[email protected]
@TheFrank_com
The Frank Staff
author

The Frank Staff

The Frank Staff.
[email protected]
@TheFrank_com

Jul 10, 2025

·

0 min read

Share options

Email
Facebook
X
Telegram
WhatsApp
Reddit

The Trump administration on Thursday issued sweeping new rules barring illegal immigrants from a host of federal welfare benefits, including food stamps, Title X family planning funds, homelessness assistance, and substance abuse treatment funds.

Several Cabinet departments, including the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services, were involved in drafting the regulation, which reinterprets the 1996 welfare reform legislation, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The new regulation rescinds a 1998 interpretation of the phrase “federal public benefit” that allowed illegal immigrants to take part in public health assistance programs.

“For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement Thursday. “Today’s action changes that—it restores integrity to federal social programs, enforces the rule of law, and protects vital resources for the American people.”

The HHS indicated that the Head Start program, a federally funded early learning and nutrition program for low-income children under age 5, would now be counted as a “federal public benefit” under the 1996 law and would only be open to U.S. citizens and qualified aliens.

Roughly one million children and families are enrolled in a Head Start-funded program each year in the United States, to the tune of nearly $12.3 billion in fiscal 2024.

HHS estimates that excluding non-citizens from Head Start will create the conditions in which “American citizens could receive as much as $374 million in additional Head Start services annually.”

“Head Start’s classification under the new PRWORA interpretation puts American families first by ensuring taxpayer-funded benefits are reserved for eligible individuals,” said Andrew Gradison, acting Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families.

The benefits change will also affect various programs under the purview of USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves more than 42.1 million people annually, or nearly 13% of the U.S. population.

Rollins said in a press release that the “generosity of the American taxpayer has long been abused” by faulty interpretations of the 1996 welfare reform law, which Thursday’s action seeks to rectify.

“Illegal aliens should not receive government dollars,” Rollins said. “This effort is one of many by the Department of Agriculture to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse of USDA’s programs and policies.”

Reforming the SNAP program was an essential part of funding President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act reconciliation legislation, signed into law last week.

According to the policy think tank Urban Institute, roughly 22.3 million U.S. families would lose some or all of their SNAP benefits from changes made in the reconciliation bill.

Other food assistance programs affected by the new regulation include the nutrition assistance program for Women, Infants, and Children, the national school lunch and breakfast programs, and the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Disaster Assistance program.

Share options

Email
Facebook
X
Telegram
WhatsApp
Reddit

Trump Fires Fed Governor Lisa Cook

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

Cracker Barrel Issues Statement After Backlash

Aug 26, 2025

3 min

Venezuela Sends Troops to Border as US Warships Approach

Aug 26, 2025

1 min

Ukrainian Refugee Stabbed to Death by Homeless Man in US

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

Trump Threatens to Investigate Christie Over ‘Bridgegate’

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

Cincinnati Attacker Indicted on Federal Drug Charges

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

DeSantis Removes Rainbow Crosswalk

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

Trump Signs Order to Jail Flag Burners

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

Judge Blocks Abrego Garcia's Deportation

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

Netherlands: Aylim Siker Murders Teen Girl

Aug 26, 2025

4 min

Trump Signs Orders to End Cashless Bail

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

Musk’s xAI Sues Apple and OpenAI

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

Lil Nas X Charged with 4 Felonies — Including Assaulting Cops

Aug 26, 2025

2 min

Late Virginia Giuffre’s Memoir to Be Released

Aug 25, 2025

3 min

Trump Slams Baltimore, Threatens to Send National Guard

Aug 25, 2025

3 min

2M+ Sign Petition Backing Migrant Trucker Who Killed 3

Aug 25, 2025

2 min

National Guard Now Carrying Firearms in DC

Aug 25, 2025

2 min

‘Sopranos’ Star Jerry Adler Dies at 96

Aug 25, 2025

3 min

UK Socialist Deputy PM Buys 3rd Home

Aug 25, 2025

2 min

Israel Strikes Houthis in Yemen

Aug 25, 2025

2 min

  • Today's Fastrack
  • About
  • Contact
  • Policy & Terms
  • Recaptcha