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On July 4th, 2025, President Trump signed his “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) into law, which, among many devastating consequences, deals a profound blow to refugees and other people seeking safety.
The OBBB’s vicious increase in ICE enforcement funding – the largest increase in U.S. history – as well as its new fees for seeking humanitarian relief have received significant attention. However, the OBBB also quietly devastates refugees and other forcibly displaced people in another severe way: by revoking their eligibility for critical public benefits including Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Affordable Care Act coverage, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
This move not only constitutes an extreme injustice – particularly considering the role refugees’ tax contributions play in sustaining such public benefits programs – but also fundamentally breaks the United States’ promise of protection.
For more than half a century, public health insurance and food stamps have been lifelines for Americans of all backgrounds, including immigrants and refugees. They not only enable lives of basic dignity by ensuring the ability to buy groceries and obtain basic healthcare, but they also provide tangible, long-term, societal benefits for the United States as a country. Access to food stamps during childhood has been shown to reduce chronic medical conditions in adulthood as well as to increase women’s economic self-sufficiency; these public benefits also contribute to better educational outcomes and decreased mental health issues.
Food and healthcare benefits are an inherent part of refugee resettlement – a crucial foundation for refugees restarting their lives. Under the Trump administration’s suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, refugees have been forced to rely on these benefits even more than usual, as Reception & Placement Services, which usually cover many of these initial needs, have been hamstrung by funding suspensions. Such services remain crucial regardless because many refugees arrive with urgent unmet health needs or require healthcare services due to disabilities. In fact, refugee resettlement often prioritizes those with critical healthcare needs which their host countries cannot address.
“This bill will literally push refugees and migrants to extreme poverty, hunger, and fatal situations. Refugees with disabilities are at the front lines of these inhumane consequences due to higher likelihoods of having unmet critical healthcare requirements, as well as lack of access to employment and income due to inaccessible vocational training and job markets. Denying access to healthcare and food to those at highest risk is fundamentally against American values and human rights obligations.”
– Elham Youssefian, IRAP Director of Disability Inclusion and Accessibility
Public health insurance programs provide essential, life-altering care, enabling refugees to address critical health challenges, access necessary accommodations, and live with dignity. Food assistance programs help refugees obtain food for themselves and their families while they integrate into a new community, find their first employment, and get on their feet economically.
Decades of research have shown time and again that when given this chance to build a new life in the United States and contribute to their communities, refugees are a net positive to U.S. public benefits systems. After just ten years, refugees and asylees resettled in the United States have similar employment and income levels on average compared to their American-born counterparts. On an individual level, estimates suggest that even in the first 20 years after resettlement – refugees’ highest usage period for public benefits – refugees still contribute $21,000 more in taxes than they use in public benefits.
Moreover, the most recent government report on refugee integration outcomes by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) found that in the fifteen year span between 2005-2019, refugees and asylees contributed $123.8 billion more to federal, state, and local governments through taxes than they used in public benefits – a surplus large enough to fund an entire year of SNAP food benefits for all Americans, not just refugees.
In short, refugees’ contributions to U.S. public benefits programs far outweigh their costs; yet, under the OBBB’s changes, refugees will now be excluded from accessing the very public benefits programs they help sustain for all Americans.
Even setting aside that refugees pay more into public benefits than they use, when the United States admits refugees for resettlement it makes a profound promise – a promise of protection. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) describes “resettlement” as a country agreeing to provide: “the right to work and study, access to health care and other social services, and the necessary support to participate in local communities.” Everyone deserves a safe place to live and a safe way to get there. By revoking refugees’ eligibility for critical public benefits programs needed to truly begin a new, safer life, the U.S. government violates this fundamental commitment.
Ensuring access to basic healthcare and food is not optional in refugee resettlement; it is foundational to the promise of protection. For refugees who come to the United States after years of waiting for a chance to restart their lives in safety, this broken promise is deeply unjust, needlessly cruel, and fundamentally un-American.
Anna MacLennan is the 2025 Policy and Communications Intern at IRAP. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Harvard University.