The US will freeze immigrant visa processing from 75 countries — including Liberia effective Jan. 21 and only affects people applying to live in the US permanently rather than tourists or short-term visa holders.
The suspension, which will impact African countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Rwanda, is being applied to nationals whom US authorities believe rely on government welfare.
The Guardian noted research that contradicted the Trump administration’s assertions about immigrant welfare use: A Feb. 2025 paper from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, found that immigrants consumed 21% fewer welfare and entitlement benefits than native-born Americans on a per capita basis in 2022.
Based on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, immigrants consumed 21 percent less welfare and entitlement benefits than native-born Americans on a per capita basis in 2022, the Cato Institute said in a 2025 report.
Native Consumption of Means-Tested Welfare and Entitlement Benefits in 2022
Total government spending on the welfare state amounted to about $3.1 trillion in 2022. That year, the federal government spent roughly $2.8 trillion on welfare and entitlement programs, an amount equal to approximately 45 percent of all federal outlays.
Over $2 trillion of federal expenditures went to Social Security and Medicare, and the other $784 billion funded means-tested welfare benefits. States spent an additional $255 billion on means-tested welfare programs.
Based on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we find that immigrants consumed 21 percent less welfare and entitlement benefits than native-born Americans on a per capita basis in 2022. Immigrants were 14.3 percent of the US population and consumed just 11.9 percent of all means-tested welfare and entitlement benefits in 2022.
Noncitizen immigrants—including those lawfully present in the United States on various temporary visas, lawful permanent residents, and illegal immigrants—consumed 54 percent less welfare than native-born Americans. Noncitizens were 7.3 percent of the population and consumed just 3.5 percent of all welfare.
However, naturalized immigrants consumed 17 percent more welfare than native-born Americans because they are an older population—they consumed 7 times as much Social Security and 4.3 times as much Medicare as noncitizens on a per capita basis. Naturalized immigrants were 7 percent of the population and consumed 8.4 percent of welfare benefits.
This study is a methodologically revised version of earlier Cato briefs on this topic, so the findings here are not directly comparable to earlier versions. Nevertheless, the overall finding that immigrants use less welfare than native-born Americans on a per capita basis is consistent among the briefs, even though there is substantial heterogeneity within the immigrant and native-born populations.
Background
Immigrant consumption of welfare benefits has been a contentious policy issue for decades. This brief is the latest in a series of Cato policy briefs on immigrant welfare consumption intended to supply more up-to-date information to policymakers and the public.1 We methodologically updated this brief in several ways to improve its accuracy, which means its findings are not directly comparable to earlier Cato briefs on this topic.
The federal government spent roughly $2.8 trillion on welfare and entitlement programs in 2022, an amount equal to approximately 45 percent of all federal outlays. In 2022, over $2 trillion went to Social Security and Medicare, whose intended beneficiaries are the elderly, while the other $784 billion went to means-tested welfare benefits, whose intended beneficiaries are people in poverty. States spent an additional $255 billion on means-tested welfare benefits.2
Means-tested welfare programs are intended to aid people in poverty of any age. Eligibility for those programs and the value of their benefits are based on various factors, including the recipient’s immigration status, income, and employment.
For the purposes of this brief, means-tested programs include Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the earned-income tax credit (EITC). The EITC is relatively smaller than the means-tested welfare benefits distributed outside the tax code.
Entitlement programs are intended to aid the elderly, and age is the primary eligibility requirement for entitlements. The value of taxes paid into the program and the number of years worked by the recipient also affect one’s eligibility and the value of benefits, among other factors. For the purposes of this brief, Medicare and Social Security benefits are entitlement programs. Social Security benefits include self-benefits and benefits on behalf of children.
The Census Bureau’s 2023 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), which examines the year 2022 and is the source of the data for this brief, doesn’t cover every welfare or entitlement program, but the programs it does cover are responsible for the vast majority of American welfare state spending.3
By Alex Nowrasteh and Jerome Famularo/Semafor/Oracle News Daily
