The federally funded food stamp program has policies in place that benefit families with one or more illegal immigrant wage earners over American citizens. Only six states have policies in place that prevent this. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) published a report on this loophole Monday. Illegal immigrants themselves are not eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but their children are.
“Let’s say that the all-citizen family consisted of three people, employed father, stay-at-home mother, and a small child. Dad makes $2,400 a month. The family’s income is too high for food stamps since the maximum monthly income is $2,177 for a family of three,” David North, a fellow at CIS and author of the report, wrote.
“Then next door there is a mixed family, also three people, with the father being the only worker, also earning $2,400 a month. The difference is that the father is an ineligible alien and so, under many states’ regulations, one-third of the family’s income is ignored (prorated is the word in SNAP circles), leaving the family with a nominal income of $1,600 a month that allows the family to get a food stamps allotment, but only for the two citizens, not for all three in the family.”
SNAP money is used for food in families that is presumably shared so the illegal immigrant gets the benefits.
A simple formula for SNAP proration is income multiplied by household size minus ineligible alien(s)/actual household size….
Read more