The notion that immigrants come to the United States to access public programs has become something of a popular myth. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), better known as welfare reform, introduced a five-year ban on lawful immigrants using public benefits with very few exceptions, like refugees and asylees. This helps ensure new immigrants are net fiscal contributors to the US Treasury — a fact which empirical studies consistently confirm. Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for public benefits. Yet some myths are harder to correct than...
Report: The Myth of the Government-Dependent Immigrant
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