By Brian Lonergan
FAIR
As the federal government shutdown drags into its fourth week, the axe is poised to fall on Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards loaded with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds, better known as food stamps. Come Nov. 1, millions of low-income families—42 million SNAP recipients nationwide—face the prospect of empty cards and bare pantries, barring an unlikely last-minute deal in Congress.
This has created three unfortunate realizations. First, many honest people facing tough circumstances may be denied needed resources. Second, U.S. citizens who are obviously scamming the welfare system are promising on social media to steal what they want from grocery stores and resort to violence if confronted. Finally, illegal aliens have been taking advantage of the SNAP program to access benefits that were never meant for them.
SNAP was not designed as a global buffet for recent illegal border-crossers; it’s a taxpayer-funded safety net created explicitly for U.S. citizens and legal residents in genuine need. Federal law bars illegal aliens from direct eligibility, a rule enshrined since the 1996 welfare reforms and reaffirmed in 2025 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidance: “SNAP is not and has never been available to undocumented non-citizens.”
The program’s architects intended that it should combat domestic food insecurity, not subsidize lawbreaking or reward evasion of immigration laws. Benefits are calculated based on eligible household members only: specifically, U.S.-born children or qualified legal immigrants. But here’s the rub: loopholes and lax enforcement have turned this safeguard into a sieve, draining billions from coffers meant for struggling Americans.
Data paints a damning picture of this exploitation. In fiscal year 2022, the USDA tallied 1.5 million noncitizens, many that should have been ineligible by strict standards, receiving SNAP benefits totaling a staggering $4.2 billion in payouts.
Fast-forward to the self-inflicted Biden-Harris border catastrophe: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects an additional $15 billion in SNAP costs by fiscal year 2034, much of it funneled to illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children through mixed-status households.
SNAP was not designed as a global buffet for recent illegal border-crossers; it’s a taxpayer-funded safety net created explicitly for U.S. citizens and legal residents in genuine need.
These statistics should not be surprising. They’re the predictable outcome of policies that wink at fraud, from fake Social Security numbers to underreported incomes in mixed households. When EBT cards run dry, remember that a chunk of those foregone benefits was already squandered on illegal aliens who shouldn’t be here, let alone at the public trough.
This exploitation is the rotten fruit of anti-borders politicians and their myopic agendas. For four years, the Biden administration deliberately imploded border enforcement by suspending wall construction, allowing in millions via “humanitarian” loopholes, and issuing catch-and-release directives. Over 10 million encounters at the southwest border since 2021, including 2 million known “gotaways,” flooded communities with unvetted arrivals. Those largely indigent entrants need food, and a loosely enforced EBT program is the obvious choice to provide it.
Elected leaders in sanctuary strongholds like New York, led by figures like Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul, lobbied for and received $150 billion in federal aid to house and feed these migrants, often routing funds through SNAP-eligible proxies.
Their rhetoric? “New Yorkers welcome all”—until hotels overflowed and taxpayers revolted. Why risk the dangerous trek from Venezuela or Honduras if not for the promise of free EBT swipes at the corner bodega? Public charge rules, meant to deter welfare-seeking migrants, were gutted under Biden, and the signal to the world was clear: Break in, and America’s bounty awaits.
The harm to legal residents is real and brutal. Every dollar diverted to ineligible households means fewer resources for veterans sleeping on sidewalks in Ohio, single moms in rural Georgia scraping by on minimum wage, or retirees in Florida whose Social Security barely covers meds.
Looking the other way on EBT fraud by illegal aliens perpetuates a vicious cycle. Generous benefits lure more arrivals, overwhelming schools, hospitals, and job markets. Black and Hispanic citizens, typically hit hardest by wage suppression from cheap foreign labor, see their communities hollowed out. Anti-borders zealots like Senator Chuck Schumer, who block shutdown-avoiding bills unless they include health subsidies for illegals, are not champions of the vulnerable. They are enablers of exploitation, dooming American families to tighter belts while illegals enjoy a free ride at taxpayers’ expense.
SNAP is for citizens who’ve paid in, not illegal aliens who have cut in line. Hungry Americans deserve better than to subsidize their own displacement. We have had enough of the scams, both at the border and the benefits window.
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