More Than Half of Foreign Refugees Are on Taxpayer-Funded Food Stamps

Raad Adayleh/AP

13 Aug 2018

More than half of the annual inflow of foreign refugees arriving in the United States are on food stamps, a government report reveals.

Since 2008, as Breitbart News reported, the U.S. has permanently resettled more than 1.7 million foreign nationals and refugees through a variety of humanitarian programs like the Special Immigrant Juveniles and the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act. This is a foreign population larger than Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — a city with more than 1.5 million residents.

An annual report by the Office of Refugee Resettlement was analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Jason Richwine, in which the analyst revealed that about 56 percent of households headed by foreign refugees who arrived in the U.S. between 2011 and 2015 are using taxpayer-funded food stamps.

Nearly 30 percent of refugees received cash welfare of some sort, while 34 percent of refugees 18-years-old or older said they had no health insurance. Of the refugees who said they did have health insurance, about 50 percent said they were either on Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance, both of which are taxpayer-funded.

The education levels of foreign refugees coming to the U.S. are also remarkably low. Roughly half of refugees 25-years or older said they did not have a high school diploma before arriving in the U.S.

Additionally, only 16 percent of refugees 18-years or older said they were currently seeking  some kind of degree. The most common degree sought by refugees is a high school diploma.

As Breitbart News‘ Michael Patrick Leahy noted most recently, President Trump’s administration has historically reduced the annual inflow of foreign refugees. Under Trump’s “America First” agenda, the U.S. is on pace to accept less than 23,000 refugees for the Fiscal Year 2018. This would be the lowest yearly refugee admission in three decades.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.