Under President Obama’s rule, illegal immigrants will be eligible for Social Security payments — and they’ll be credited for the time they’ve been working illegally, in some cases.
Obama’s executive actions — according to a Congressional Research Service memo sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee and obtained by The Daily Caller — will permit illegals who qualify for the president’s program to earn Social Security payments.
“Under the November 20, 2014, policy memorandum, foreign nationals who receive deferred action status may be eligible for work authorization,” the CRS memo states. “As a result, a foreign national who receives deferred action status may be able to have all of his or her Social Security-covered earnings count toward qualifying for a Social Security benefit (all earnings from authorized and unauthorized work).”
Therefore, illegal immigrants who have previously paid into the Social Security system — while using a fraudulent Social Security number, for instance — will be eligible for benefits derived from that system. Those benefits include retirement, disability and survivor payments.
The CRS admits that some immigrants could have trouble proving that they were using a specific, fake Social Security number while working illegally.
“[I]t is unclear how easy it will be for a foreign national to prove that earnings credited to a Social Security number that was not issued to the foreign national (i.e., credits earned while the person was working without authorization) belong on his or her earnings record,” the memo states.
Illegal immigrants covered by Obama’s executive actions are receiving new social security numbers.
A GOP aide who provided the memo to TheDC says that “the executive amnesty onion has just started being peeled.”
“These benefits programs are in dire trouble,” the aide said, “and they need to be preserved for legal immigrants and American citizens first and foremost.”
In its pitches for public buy-in, the White House has given conflicting stories about whether illegals will be eligible for Social Security payments.
When Obama announced his executive action back in November 2014, a White House official claimed that affected illegal immigrants wouldn’t be eligible for Social Security payments.
But by December, the White House had reversed course, claiming that the official misspoke.
Read the memo: