California has built what City Journal’s Chris Rufo calls a “shadow welfare system” — a network of state- and locally funded programs that extend health care, rental assistance, college grants, tax credits, low-cost car insurance, and even smartphones to noncitizens, including those living in the country illegally. Monica Showalter, writing for American Thinker, highlights Rufo’s findings as evidence that the state’s generosity comes at a steep cost to taxpayers.
The numbers are striking. According to the report, a family of five in California — with two parents in the country illegally, two U.S.-born children, and one grandparent also in the country illegally — can receive public services worth more than $100,000 per year. Californians, Showalter notes, already pay the highest state taxes in the nation to underwrite these programs.
Working Around Federal Restrictions
Federal law generally bars states from using federal dollars to serve illegal immigrants. According to Rufo’s reporting, California sidesteps that restriction by creating parallel state- and locally funded programs that extend benefits to noncitizens. The result, he writes, is that more than one in four California residents today is foreign-born.
Medicaid offers a case in point. Because federal law prohibits states from using federal money to provide wraparound coverage to illegal immigrants, California used a state-funded “bucket” within its Medi-Cal program to extend full-scope coverage. Those expansions enrolled roughly 1.7 million people and cost the state an estimated $10 billion annually — more than double what the state’s legislative analyst originally projected, per the City Journal piece.
The article also points to what it describes as a “fake illegal alien problem”: Steve Hilton’s CAL-DOGE program reportedly detected thousands of Mexicans enrolled in free Medi-Cal as supposed illegal aliens who are actually living in Mexico. Showalter characterizes Tijuana, where many of those enrollees reside, as having “an absence of bums and disorder.”
Massachusetts: A ‘Banquet Table’ of Benefits
California is not alone. Showalter cites Boston commentator and investigative reporter Howie Carr, who in 2024 examined how much Massachusetts was spending on benefits for illegal immigrants. Carr’s list, as quoted in the piece, includes three meals a day at a per diem of $64 per person, free on-site medical and dental services, same-day dry cleaning with pickup and delivery, free cell phones and chargers, new winter coats, gloves, and shoes, and free toiletries.
The list continues with free tax preparation at $350 per family — which the article suggests is used to claim the child tax credit without paying into the system — along with free attorneys, free Medicaid, WIC cash for single mothers, welfare checks, Uber services, holiday parties, movie nights, notary services, English-as-a-second-language courses, and round-the-clock security.
On moving day, according to Carr’s findings as recounted by Showalter, recipients can receive $30,000 in rent assistance over two years, free luggage, U-Haul boxes, new beds with delivery, up to ten pieces of furniture, a move-in package of plates, towels and cutlery worth up to $900, a case manager to find housing, parenting classes, early childhood education, and life coaches.
The Affordability Paradox
Showalter argues that California’s approach amounts to replacing a fleeing population with incentives funded by taxpayers. She frames the state’s high tax burden as a deliberate choice by Democratic leaders to give millions of illegal immigrants a free ride, and she pushes back on the idea that such policies promote affordability.
“Sure, it’s affordable for illegals,” she writes. “Just don’t let them talk ‘affordability’ with this kind of pocket-picking of the taxpayers. This is the opposite of affordability.”
The piece closes with a fundraising appeal for American Thinker, urging readers to support the outlet’s work. Whether or not one shares the editorial’s conclusions, the figures it cites — the $10 billion annual Medi-Cal expansion, the $100,000-plus family benefit calculation, the 1.7 million enrollees — are the kind that will keep fueling debate over how states fund services for noncitizens and who ultimately foots the bill.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/09/in-california-illegals-roll-in-the-dough-city-journal/