The overwhelming majority of households headed by Afghan immigrants with children in the home are on one or more forms of taxpayer-funded welfare in the United States, newly released analysis reveals.
The analysis, published by Jason Richwine at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), reviews Census Bureau data on Afghan immigrants in the U.S. — an immigrant group that has exploded from just 22,000 in 1990 to almost a quarter of a million as of 2024.
Center for Immigration Studies
Most significantly, the Census data shows that almost all Afghan households with children are on publicly funded welfare — similar to that of Somali immigrant households with children in Minnesota, where 81 percent of such households are on at least one form of welfare.
In particular, the data shows that 85 percent of Afghan households with children are on one or more forms of welfare — including 81 percent on Medicaid, 61 percent on food stamps, and 15 percent on cash assistance.
Compare this massive absorption of welfare by the Afghan immigrant population to native-born American households with children, 40 percent of which consume welfare, including 37 percent on Medicaid, 18 percent on food stamps, and just seven percent on cash assistance.
Center for Immigration Studies
When the component of children is removed from the data, Afghan immigrant households still consume vastly more welfare than native-born Americans and other immigrant groups in the U.S.
In general, 72 percent of Afghan households are on welfare, including 68 percent on Medicaid, 47 percent on food stamps, and 14 percent on cash assistance.
Meanwhile, just 26 percent of native-born American households are on welfare, including 23 percent on Medicaid, 11 percent on food stamps, and 7 percent on cash assistance.
Center for Immigration Studies
Richwine suggests that the high rate of Afghan immigrants on welfare could indicate that fraud plays a role, as it has in the Somali immigrant population, as recent federal investigations have uncovered.
“Welfare use rates among Afghan immigrants are so high that one may wonder whether they are engaged in the kind of fraud that has recently embroiled the Somali immigrant community,” Richwine writes.
Richwine writes that should Congress want to cut welfare usage among immigrants, halting legal immigration from high-welfare-use regions like Afghanistan is a starting point.
“As a policy matter, the way to reduce immigrant consumption of welfare is not simply to crack down on fraud, but to reduce the number of new arrivals who have the low earnings power characteristic of Afghans,” Richwine writes.
Indeed, most recently, the State Department has frozen visa processing from nearly 100 countries that have been shown to produce welfare-dependent immigrants. Afghanistan, as well as Somalia, is among those countries.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.
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