Illegals To Get Food Stamps Via Joint U.S.D.A. – Mexico Program

by da Tagliare

First the Federal government offers free medical and education benefits to illegal aliens, all at the cost to U.S. taxpayers.  Now, you can add food stamps to the list of free benefits they will be receiving.
In an agreement that was originally signed in 2004 between then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman and Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Ernesto Derbez Bautista, both governments will provide education and guidance to help Mexican nationals living and working in the U.S. to receive help obtaining food stamps and other programs.
On the U.S.D.A. website, Reaching Low-Income Hispanics With Nutritional Assistance, it states three ways in which they plan in getting more aid and benefits to Hispanics living and working in the U.S.  Those three ways are: 1) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which replaced food stamps; 2) Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC); 3) Child Nutrition Programs.

Further down in the same U.S.D.A. document it reads:

“Partnering with Mexico. USDA and the government of Mexico have entered into a partnership to help educate eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States about available nutrition assistance. Mexico will help disseminate this information through its
embassy and network of approximately 50 consular offices.”

Keep reading the U.S.D.A. document to see just how far the government is going to reach out to Hispanics.  The one thing I noticed is that it does not specify if the Mexican nationals living and working in the U.S. are legal or illegal, but you can bet your tax dollars that if the Mexican government is going to be providing this information through 50 offices to their people heading to the U.S. that a significant number of them will not be coming legally.
I also noticed that this program was first launched in 2004 under President George W. Bush.  Veneman, who signed the agreement of the U.S. is currently serving as the executive director of UNICEF, which should explain why she has such liberal views as to disregard the difference between taking care of legal citizens and providing handouts for illegal aliens.
At least one current politician is wanting more information about the U.S. – Mexican partnership.  Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has asked the current U.S.D.A. Secretary, Tom Vilsack for more documents relating to the partnership.  Sessions has been pushing to tighten the standards under which people receive aid from the SNAP program.  In speaking on the matter, Sessions stated:

“It’s a very disturbing policy, gone on for some years, and it raises very serious questions about American immigration policy as well as fiscal policy.  Let’s get back to the fundamentals. What happened with the ‘96 welfare reform was to say that if you want to come to America you come legally, you assert you’re not coming for welfare benefits but you’re coming to work or otherwise be independent. There is no logic behind an immigration policy that would encourage immigrants who can’t successfully operate within this society.”
“An immigration policy should seek to bring people to the United States who will be able to function independently without government subsidies.  We’ve got millions of people that want to come here, millions of people who would be able to perform without a subsidy, so we need to be selecting those people.”

Sessions also says that there is a problem with the way many states operate welfare type programs.  In a number of instances, they simply accept the word of the applicant that they are legally eligible to receive the aid.  Some states use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to verify legal status, but others do not.
I agree with Sen. Sessions in that the United States hands out way too much help to people coming to the U.S., especially those that come illegally.  Most people that I know who legally immigrated to the U.S. had to show proof that they had the means to support themselves or had a sponsor stating that they would assume that responsibility.  I believe the same should be true for all people immigrating and for those that can’t provide that proof, I would turn them around and send them back on their merry way.
Our country is financially bleeding to death from many different wounds.  Some of those wounds have been inflicted by giving handouts to illegal aliens.  If we want to stop the bleeding, we have to stop the problems that are causing it.  That means much tighter border security, no more handouts for non-U.S. citizens and stronger enforcement of immigration laws.  Once we stop the bleeding from these wounds, we can turn our focus to other wounds in hopes of saving the patient – the United States of America.