Vance: Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Lost Annually to Illegal Immigrants

WASHINGTON—Vice President JD Vance estimated on May 13 that U.S. taxpayers are funding hundreds of billions of dollars annually for illegal immigrants.

This taxpayer money goes to fraudulent benefits obtained by illegal immigrants and funding criminal processing for those arrested for crimes, he said.

“I’ve seen efforts to try to quantify this. I think the answer is hundreds of billions of dollars a year,” Vance said in response to a question from The Epoch Times at a May 13 press conference.

“Whether it’s 300 or [600], it is a lot of money between Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, prison, fees, everything that goes into the criminal migrant problem in the United States of America. It’s a lot of money.”

He indicated that pinpointing a figure is challenging because of the many variables at play and the efforts by individuals and some organizations to hide others’ immigration status.

“I don’t know that you can quantify it because it’s so hard to keep track of all of the criminal migrants who are taking advantage of our system,” Vance said.

Imprisoning illegal immigrants who commit crimes costs between $60,000 and $120,000 annually per inmate, according to the vice president.

Some states, including California and New York, allow illegal immigrants to collect health care benefits.

“They actually allow illegal aliens to benefit from the American people’s health care programs, which is just a disgrace and just a travesty,” Vance said.

“I mean, if you go into an emergency room, you should know that you’re waiting in line with other American citizens, not with people who have been placed to the front of the line by a fraudulent Medicaid program in California. But that’s what’s happening.”

The vice president said it impacts the access to medical care for Americans.

“It’s driving up costs for everybody. It’s making it harder to access health care, and it’s absolutely fleecing the American taxpayer,” he said. “It is a lose-lose-lose proposition.”

Vance emphasized that U.S. tax dollars must first take care of U.S. citizens before they are spent on other people.

“We’re a generous country, we’re a generous people; I love that about this country, but part of that generosity is that it extends to our fellow Americans,” Vance said. “We cannot give Medicare and Medicaid benefits to everybody all over the world. It’s going to bankrupt those programs.”

The vice president noted the importance of prioritizing Americans, an overarching theme of President Donald Trump’s two administrations.

“And that to me is the fundamental meaning of America first, is that all of us take a look at our programs, take a look at the fraud, and we say, ‘How do we ensure that the federal government works for the American people first?’” Vance said. “That’s what we’re doing every single day, and we’re going to keep at it.”

He also announced that the federal government is withholding more than $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements from California, citing a lack of fraud enforcement in the state. And payments were suspended to approximately 800 hospice providers in the Los Angeles area as part of a broad crackdown on improper payouts.

Vance will travel to Bangor, Maine, to deliver remarks on Thursday while the president is in Beijing for a two-day summit.