As a potential U.S. government shutdown looms, senior Trump administration officials and Republicans in Congress have insisted the stalemate revolves around Democrats wanting to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants.
The Claim
“Democrats are going to shut down the federal government and inflict significant pain on American citizens because President Trump won’t force taxpayers to fund free benefits to illegal aliens,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X September 26. “Democrats are radical and completely America Last.”
Vice President JD Vance said Monday that Democratic Senators have some “crazy ideas,” including funding healthcare for illegal immigrants, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller also shared a similar message on X.
“Senate Democrats are about to block a clean, routine government funding bill because it doesn’t give free healthcare to illegals,” Miller wrote.
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The Facts
Democrats released a budget proposal that seeks to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies before they expire at the end of the year. The plan, put forward by Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro and Washington Senator Patty Murray, also includes a reversal of Medicaid cuts made earlier this year.
The pair argues that if their proposal is not put in place, then “15 million Americans” will be kicked off their health care plans, because of the provisions made in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would see health care provisions expire in 2027, including for legal immigrants accessing ACA subsidies.
“While Republicans push America to the brink of a shutdown, Democrats are ready to negotiate a bipartisan continuing resolution and government funding bills that lower the cost of living, help working people—not just billionaires—and protect people’s health care,” DeLauro and Murray said in a joint statement.
The proposal does not include free healthcare for illegal immigrants.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Monday that Republicans were misrepresenting the Democratic Party’s position.
“Federal law prohibits the expenditure of taxpayer dollars on providing healthcare to undocumented immigrants,” Jeffries told reporters. “Nowhere have democrats suggested that we are interested in changing federal law.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went one step further in the Senate on Tuesday, calling it “utter bull” and adding, “So why do they bring this up? Because they are afraid to talk about the real issue, which is healthcare for the American citizens.”
According to KFF, an organization that analyzes health policy in the U.S., under the Republicans’ 2025 Tax and Budget Law, 1.4 million lawfully present immigrants could lose health coverage.
The analysis refers to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) own reporting, which said $131 billion could be saved by making it so that a smaller list of lawful immigrants is able to access Medicaid and CHIP. Among the immigrants set to lose access to health care plans are refugees and asylees, those paroled into the U.S., and those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
All of this is something Democrats have denounced, but there do not appear to be concrete plans to keep coverage for the groups about to become ineligible.
Immigrants in the U.S. without legal status – now referred to as illegal aliens, commonly as undocumented immigrants – are largely barred from accessing healthcare under the ACA, as well as Medicaid and Medicare.
There are some exemptions to this rule, namely for emergency room care, which the government does then repay, but this applies to all patients without other medical insurance, regardless of immigration status.
There have been concerns around abuse of the system, with the CBO finding earlier this year that there has been fraud and abuse by the previous administration, allowing at least 2.3 million “fraudulent enrollees”, to use Obamacare – or the ACA. However, the CBO did not characterize these individuals as immigrants without legal status. The CBO did estimate that under the OBBB, 1.2 million immigrants could lose out on health subsidies in the coming years, but again did not specify legal status.
Democrats continue to insist that they want to meet with Republicans and come to a deal, but the two sides are at odds over the issue of healthcare for immigrants. Part of the difficulty here is competing views on immigration, and which immigrants should be allowed to access government benefits – be that at the federal or state level.
Trump, his White House officials, and the wider GOP have put forward plans, with some success, to limit access to benefits to only Green Card holders and American citizens, as well as a select group of other visa holders. Immigration advocates and some Democrats have countered that if an immigrant is paying taxes, they should be able to access services like anyone else.
States and cities can also provide healthcare, for free, to residents regardless of immigration status. These are run by Democrats, on the whole, and the Trump administration has also raised concerns about these policies, despite them being locally funded.
As for the potential shutdown Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on X that it was the Democrats who had a choice to make, despite Republicans holding the majority and Democratic leaders’ insistence that they were not for funding health care for illegal immigrants.
“They can shut down the government and subject the American people to all the problems that come with a government shutdown. Or they can join Republicans to pass a clean, nonpartisan funding bill and keep the lights on here in Washington,” he wrote.
Newsweek reached out to Senate Democratic leaders for comment via email on Tuesday morning
The Ruling
False.
Republicans stating Democrats want to provide healthcare to illegal immigrants is not true, with minority party leaders insisting they want to keep lawful residents, and American citizens, covered by health plans while negotiations continue.
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