(José Niño, Headline USA) Immigrant-headed households access government welfare programs at dramatically higher rates than their American citizen counterparts, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies.
The CIS analysis drew on Current Population Survey data spanning 2021 to 2025. The findings show that 47 percent of households headed by immigrants participate in at least one traditional welfare program such as food stamps, Medicaid, or subsidized housing. Among households headed by American citizens, that number drops to 28 percent, a difference of 19 percentage points.
“We find that non-citizen households use one or more means-tested programs at substantially higher rates than the U.S.-born in virtually every state,” CIS researchers Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler note.
The disparity grows even more pronounced in states with substantial immigrant populations. In New York, 61 percent of immigrant households participate in welfare programs while only 33 percent of American citizen households do the same. Massachusetts registers 55 percent immigrant household welfare participation, followed by California at 54 percent, Arizona at 53 percent, and Maryland at 50 percent.
Even states with relatively small foreign born populations exhibit significant gaps. Half of all immigrant headed households in Idaho receive welfare benefits, double the rate among American citizen households. The disparity widens further in Nebraska, where 54 percent of immigrant households access welfare compared to merely 21 percent of citizen households.
John Binder of Breitbart News noted that hese patterns persist despite longstanding federal prohibitions on welfare access for most newly arrived legal immigrants and those present illegally.
“Although most new legal immigrants and illegal immigrants are barred from accessing most means-tested programs, this analysis, like others going back decades, shows that these restrictions have not prevented a large share of non-citizen-headed households from accessing the welfare system across the country,” Camarota and Zeigler wrote in the CIS report.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
