The Trump administration is taking steps to cut $40 billion in taxpayer-funded federal benefits being accessed by illegal immigrants.
According to a report by Fox News, the administration is moving to restrict illegal immigrants from accessing more than 15 federal assistance programs. The effort follows the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which was recently signed into law by President Donald Trump. The administration has emphasized that the bill’s funding cuts are focused on removing individuals who are ineligible for assistance, particularly illegal immigrants, from programs like Medicaid.
“This bill protects Medicaid … for those who truly deserve this program, the needy, pregnant women, children and sick Americans who physically cannot work,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt during a press briefing last month. “It ensures that able-bodied Americans who can work 20 hours a week are actually doing so, and that will therefore strengthen and protect those benefits for Americans who need it.”
Leavitt added that the measure would eliminate roughly 1.4 million illegal immigrants from Medicaid while targeting “waste, fraud and abuse.”
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a statement Thursday announcing what it called a “significant policy shift” to ensure that taxpayer-funded programs are no longer used to “subsidize illegal aliens.” HHS confirmed it had rescinded a 1998 interpretation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which had extended certain federal benefits to illegal immigrants.
Among the programs being restructured is Head Start, the federally funded preschool initiative. HHS reclassified Head Start as a “Federal public benefit,” meaning it will now be restricted to US citizens. The agency estimated this change could result in American citizens receiving up to $374 million more in Head Start services annually.
“For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “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.”
