According to a chart published by Personal Finance Wizards, 45.6% of Afghan immigrant households in the United States receive SNAP benefits. The chart, which shows the percentage of U.S. households receiving SNAP benefits by ethnicity, uses data from U.S. Census Table S0201.
Other groups with high participation rates include Somali households at 42.4%, Iraqi households at 34.8%, Dominican households at 34.4%, and Caribbean households at 28.2%.
Democrats are fond of claiming that illegal immigrants are not eligible for welfare and that illegal immigration, and immigration in general, represents a net gain for U.S. taxpayers. The term “welfare” is used specifically to narrow the scope.
The reality, however, is that legal and illegal immigrants receive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal and state assistance each year through a variety of programs, including Medicaid, food assistance programs, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), housing assistance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), SNAP, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), school meal programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicare, and Affordable Care Act premium tax credits.
Furthermore, when it comes specifically to welfare, Democrats ignore the fact that families headed by illegal immigrant parents can receive benefits if they have U.S.-citizen children. Because the parents often work off the books, they can claim to have no income, making their children eligible for welfare benefits.
A separate analysis of 2024 Survey of Income and Program Participation data, published in February 2026 by the Center for Immigration Studies, found that 52.7% of immigrant-headed households used one or more major welfare programs, compared with 37.3% of U.S.-born-headed households. The largest gaps were in Medicaid use, at 39% versus 27%, and food assistance, at 35% versus 22%.
Among households headed specifically by illegal immigrants, the report found an overall welfare participation rate of 60.7%. One data point often cited to support the false claim that immigrants use benefits at a lower rate than native-born citizens is that SSI and housing assistance use among this group is lower than among U.S.-born households. However, the lower rate of SSI use is only because illegal aliens are largely barred from receiving SSI, although some still receive it through various means. As for housing benefits, U.S.-citizen children of immigrants, including illegal immigrants, qualify for housing assistance, so their parents do not need to apply for it themselves.
Hellbound and Down 