About one million illegal aliens just lost access to billions in taxpayer funded cash payments.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dropped the hammer on Wednesday, unveiling proposed regulations that would block unauthorized immigrants from collecting four refundable tax credits. Those credits include the child tax credit, earned income tax credit, adoption credit, and American opportunity credit. As reported, only U.S. citizens, nationals, and qualified aliens would remain eligible going forward. The projected savings? A cool $3 billion.
Let that number sink in for a second. Three billion dollars flowing out the door to people who were never supposed to get a dime of it.
Here is the wild part. The law already on the books restricted these benefits to citizens and qualified aliens. It was always right there in black and white. But nobody bothered to actually enforce it. People filed their returns, collected their checks, and zero verification ever took place. It was basically an honor system with no honor.
Bessent did not mince words about the situation. He declared that under President Trump, the era of illegal aliens collecting taxpayer funded benefits is officially finished. He called the law crystal clear and said Treasury is finally doing its job by enforcing it. He also pointed out that Americans should never have been forced to bankroll benefits for individuals legally barred from receiving them.
IRS Chief Executive Frank Bisignano piled on, explaining that refundable credits like the earned income tax credit were specifically created to support low and middle income American families. Not anyone who happened to file a return.
And that word "refundable" is where the real scandal lives. Unlike a normal tax credit that simply reduces what you owe, a refundable credit pays you cash when the credit amount exceeds your tax bill. So individuals with little or no tax liability, including many unauthorized immigrants, were pocketing thousands of dollars annually. Not reimbursements for taxes they paid. Straight up government payments funded by American workers.
This gravy train ran for years under previous administrations. The Biden White House knew about it. The IRS knew about it. Nobody lifted a finger.
The new regulation introduces a simple fix. Taxpayers claiming these credits must declare under penalty of perjury that they are eligible. They need to be a citizen, national, or qualified alien on the date they submit their return. For married couples filing jointly, at least one spouse has to meet that standard.
So we are talking about a law that existed all along, roughly a million recipients who should never have qualified, and $3 billion in savings that could have been realized at any point in the last several years. The proposed rule is now published in the Federal Register and will be enforced by the IRS.
Politics is full of empty slogans and press conferences that go nowhere. This one actually came with paperwork, a dollar figure, and a deadline. Those credits were built for American families, and that is exactly who will be collecting them going forward.
Read more conservative news commentary at: USA Journal News
