This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, January 20, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

It bears repeating immigrants are less likely than Native-born Americans to make use of a broad range of

welfare benefits. Cato's Alex Narasta goes through the most recent data.

What do we know or what did we suspect I should start with about immigrants using welfare?

This is a popular campaign line for people who are of the Trumpian persuasion with respect to politics and what policies ought to be adopted.

What is the popular line about immigrant welfare use and what did we actually know about it until recently?

The big concern is that immigrants disproportionately use welfare in the United States,

that many of them who are poor come from poor countries. They could come here and supposedly live off

welfare and as a result extort the US taxpayer or consume benefits that other Americans could get. And that has been the line used for decades as far actually over a century, even when the U.S. didn't have a welfare state. This was the line used by people. And what we know now

taking a look at this evidence is that immigrants systematically use less

welfare than Native-born Americans. They are less likely to be in these programs,

and when they are the size and the dollar value,

the benefits they consume is lower than Native-born Americans.

And part of that is because there are explicit prohibitions in law on many immigrants' use of welfare.

What spell that out a little bit?

That's right.

There are many laws that prevent immigrants from using welfare in the United States.

So with very few exceptions, illegal immigrants are ineligible for means tested welfare benefits.

There are a handful of exceptions. Those are mostly on the state level.

Legal immigrants here in a green card cannot get means tested welfare benefits for the first five years that they are here and that they are working.

Some states have exceptions for some programs,

...