Government assistance isn’t one-size-fits-all. For immigrants in the United States, eligibility depends on income, work history, and immigration status. Changes enacted with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) reshaped who can access programs such as Medicaid and SNAP. Let’s unpack who qualifies for what with this unique visual. |
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- Immigrants with long-term lawful status, such as green card holders, are eligible for some federal programs such as Social Security as soon as they are granted that status and others like CHIP (Childhood Health Insurance Program) after five years.
- Unauthorized immigrants are typically ineligible for these programs, with one exception: public K-12 education is available to all children, regardless of status.
- In some cases, states can also offer immigrants additional healthcare coverage. For example, every state offers Emergency Medicaid, which is a limited version of Medicaid to treat people who would otherwise qualify if not for their immigration status in medical emergencies.
- Immigrants pay into public benefit programs through sales, property, state, local, and income taxes. It’s estimated that about half of undocumented immigrants pay federal, state, and local taxes.
- In 2025, the OBBB limited eligibility for SNAP, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to green card holders. It also phased out some access for people with temporary protection or humanitarian statuses, such as CHIP access for refugees.
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How many arrests does ICE make? |
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In the aftermath of 9/11, the federal government reorganized immigration enforcement under the newly created Department of Homeland Security. One result of this reorganization? Immigration and Customs Enforcement, often called ICE. You may have seen the agency in the headlines this year, so here’s more on the arrests ICE makes.
- ICE's mission includes an enforcement and removal operations (ERO) division to carry out civil immigration law enforcement inside the US. It also makes some of ICE’s criminal arrests.
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- ICE made 149,071 arrests in fiscal year 2024. Over 76% of them (113,430) were administrative arrests by ERO. The rest were criminal arrests, including 3,032 by ERO.
- The number of administrative arrests has fluctuated for more than a decade. Since FY 2014, monthly totals have ranged from a high of 19,040 in October 2013 to 2,450 in February 2021 (the lowest point during the pandemic).
- Of the 113,430 administrative arrests in FY 2024, about half (57,690) involved people with prior criminal convictions. It wasn’t necessarily one conviction each — it averaged out to 3.4 convictions per person. The most common offenses were:
- Traffic offenses (24.7%)
- Immigration-related offenses (15.5%)
- Dangerous drug offenses (14.1%)
- Updates of this data have been delayed since January 2025. It is typically published monthly, but the Office of Homeland Security Statistics has acknowledged that the monthly reports are delayed while under review.
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Florida has announced plans to eliminate childhood vaccine mandates. Nationwide, more and more children are getting vaccine exemptions. Read this newly published article on the trend, and stay tuned for a deeper dive in a newsletter later this month. President Trump has nominated someone to take a short-term spot on the Federal Reserve’s board of governors. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has opened an investigation into another Federal Reserve board member. Here’s an explainer on what the Federal Reserve does. |
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Bullying and harassment of K-12 students based on sex, race, or disability fell 84% from the 2011–2012 school year to 2020–2021. In that decade, the number of full-time school counselors nationwide also increased by 83%, from about 69,359 to 127,201. |
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