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HHS to Immigrant Sponsors: Pay What You Owe for Immigrants Who Use Medicaid or Face Collection

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has told the sponsors of immigrants that they must repay taxpayers for Medicaid benefits for which the immigrants are ineligible yet received despite the sponsors’ vow of financial support.

Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of Health and Human Services, notified the sponsors by a letter dated December 11 that became public this week.

The crackdown comes as the federal prosecutors arrest and charge Somali fraudsters in Minnesota with bilking taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid, federal housing, and other money.

Under various laws and programs, foreign citizens can ‘permanently reside’ in the U.S. as non-citizens. It’s not U.S. citizenship, but it’s not not citizenship, either. Biden used one of these programs, for example, to submerge midwestern towns with Haitians who can’t drive. (Ditto for Somalis and many other failed-state refugees.) The rules are complex and arcane, which is why Biden also paid lawyers to help the migrants.

One of the rules requires each permanent resident to have a sponsor, an individual who demonstrates sufficient assets and income to support the person if they ever become a financial burden on the state.

There’s even a sponsor form, the I-864, which includes a contract. The contract puts the sponsor on the hook for any welfare given to the immigrant by any local, state, or Federal agency. Here’s the relevant language from the form:

What If I Do Not Fulfill My Obligations?
If you do not provide sufficient support to the person who becomes a lawful permanent resident based on a Form I-864 that you
signed, that person may sue you for this support.
If a Federal, state, local, or private agency provided any covered means-tested public benefit to the person who becomes a lawful
permanent resident based on a Form I-864 that you a signed, the agency may ask you to reimburse them for the amount of the benefits they provided. If you do not make the reimbursement, the agency may sue you for the amount that the agency believes you owe.
If you are sued, and the court enters a judgment against you, the person or agency that sued you may use any legally permitted
procedures for enforcing or collecting the judgment. You may also be required to pay the costs of collection, including attorney fees.

Right about now, you’re probably thinking this sounds great, and wondering why you never heard of it before. The reason is simple. The Democrats passed this law to ‘prove’ immigrants wouldn’t be a burden, and then promptly broomed it via their favorite tactic: selective non-enforcement. Two tiers of justice are better than one!

So far as I can tell from court records, the government has never before sued a sponsor. After all, the contract only says the agency “may ask for reimbursement.” May. Not “must.”

One imagines the interview. The sponsor, ready to sign, stumbles over the liability paragraph. He holds the pen, blinking, unsure, and looks up querulously at the free immigrant attorney. “Does this mean…” they begin to ask. They needn’t finish the sentence. The lawyer waves her cigarette airily and says, “don’t worry about that section. They never do anything about that.”

But, barring an appellate miracle, she now faces sentencing of up to six years in prison. Even if she never serves hard time, the felony conviction will end her judicial career and will probably ensure she never even works as a lawyer.