Despite legacy media claims, illegal immigrants do indeed receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, commonly known as food stamps.
In fact, it’s estimated that millions of illegal immigrants are collecting food stamps.
Though SNAP data is hard to come by, seemingly intentionally so, a 2024 Survey of Income and Program Participation that’s been analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) gives us some insight.
CIS estimates that up to 4.5 million illegals are using SNAP, even though SNAP is restricted to applicants who have legal status.
Notably, only the applicant, in theory, must have legal status in the U.S. Members of households who indirectly benefit from food stamps do not have to disclose legal status.
Moreover, illegal immigrants are already permitted to use WIC, which is another welfare food program, though it’s more restrictive than SNAP.
CIS also found that 47% of all noncitizen households — which includes noncitizens with legal status — receive taxpayer-funded food assistance, be it WIC or SNAP, or both.
In another eye-popping statistic, 59.4% of illegal immigrant households use at least one major welfare program, CIS estimates.
Much attention has been paid to the SNAP program since the recent Democrat-backed government shutdown, which is finally over. The program is massive and apparently had no real oversight before the Trump administration stepped in.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has openly called the program “extremely corrupt” and is undertaking a complete overhaul to root out fraud and abuse. Most notably, she’s having everyone on SNAP reapply for their benefits, which could potentially save taxpayers billions of dollars.
Currently, there are about 43 million people in the SNAP program, which is about 12% of the population. It costs taxpayers around $100 billion to fund annually.
Rollins said that when she became secretary, she realized SNAP was basically running on autopilot while experiencing this massive growth. She cited 40% growth during the COVID era.
After she was sworn in, Rollins asked every state to share their SNAP data to track down the fraud, but only 29 states complied, mostly red states. She said, so far, they’ve identified 186,000 deceased people receiving SNAP checks, 500,000 people getting two times the benefits they are supposed to, and individuals receiving benefits in multiple states.
The Trump administration is currently suing the remaining states, including New York and California, for their SNAP data. Rollins has suggested that the fraud and abuse exposed there will be even worse.
Rollins and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are also working together to push states to limit food and drink choices available for SNAP. Soda is one of the most commonly purchased items with food stamps, and nearly 25% of SNAP dollars go to soda and candy, and other junk food. So far, 11 states have asked for waivers to exclude soda and candy from SNAP – all red states except for Colorado.