15 States Sue Biden-Harris Administration Over Alleged Enrollment of Noncitizens in Obamacare

A group of states, led by Kansas, have sued the Biden-Harris administration to stop the federal government from giving foreigners in the U.S. illegally free health care through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

The case was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Western Division of North Dakota by Kris Kobach, the attorney general of Kansas. Attorneys general from 14 other states also joined the case. Those who are being sued are the U.S. government and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

This is about a final rule change from CMS called “Clarifying the Eligibility of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Recipients and Certain Other Non-Citizens for a Qualified Health Plan Through an Exchange, Advance Payments of the Premium Tax Credit, Cost-Sharing Reductions, a Basic Health Program.” In it, CMS changes the legal definition of “lawfully present” to include people with DACA.

Congress made the ACA so that only “citizens or nationals of the United States [and] aliens lawfully present in the United States” could get it. By adding DACA recipients to the meaning of “lawfully present,” CMS is letting them get coverage under the ACA that is paid for by taxpayers. The lawsuit says that doing so goes against the Administrative Procedures Act, a federal law that says illegal immigrants can’t get government benefits, and the Affordable Care Act.

Congress has already limited who can get coverage, so DACA applicants are not eligible. The complaint also says that “DACA recipients are, by definition, unlawfully present in the United States.” “In fact, being in the United States illegally is a requirement for DACA.”

In 2012, former President Barack Obama used an executive order to make DACA possible. Parents who brought children into the country illegally could not be deported. This law has been challenged in court for 12 years. Two times, a federal judge has said that DACA is not valid. The most recent decision was in a case brought by several states led by Texas to end DACA for good, according to The Center Square. The case is likely to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in the end.

Several news sources say that between 700,000 and 800,000 DACA applicants live in the U.S. A story from the Los Angeles Times says that as of March 2023, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has records for 578,680 people.

As noted by The Center Square, in June, President Joe Biden said he would make it easier for DACA recipients to get temporary visas by expanding protections against deportation and streamlining request waivers. People who support DACA say that people who get it should be given citizenship because they help the U.S. economy and are good citizens.

Others say that people with crime records should be sent back to their home country. The Center Square noted that in the first five years of the program, almost 80,000 DACA recipients were let back into the U.S. with arrest records.

Kobach said, “Illegal immigrants shouldn’t be able to come into our country for free.” “When they get there, they shouldn’t get any help from taxpayers, and the Biden-Harris administration shouldn’t be able to break the law without any consequences.” That’s why I’m leading a lawsuit with other states to stop this illegal rule from going into action.

If the final CMS rule goes into effect on November 1, more than 200,000 DACA users will automatically be able to get health plans across the country that are paid for by taxpayers.

The lawsuit uses information from the Migration Policy Institute, the Pew Research Center, and other sources to guess how many illegal immigrants get public services and how much it costs taxpayers in each of the plaintiff states.

The case asks the court to delay the rule’s start date, throw it out, stop the defendants from putting it into effect, and pay the lawyers for the plaintiffs their fees.

The attorneys general from Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia will also be there with Kobach.

Source