Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach (R) is leading a 15-state lawsuit against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s administration for its opening the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to illegal aliens enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
In May, Biden and Harris announced a final rule to open Obamacare rolls to some DACA illegal aliens enrolled in the program. Former President Obama first created the DACA program via executive order, shielding more than a million illegal aliens from deportation through the years.
On Thursday, Kobach announced a lawsuit over the rule. He is joined by attorneys general from Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Among other things, the lawsuit accuses the Biden-Harris administration of attempting to keep illegal aliens in the U.S. who may have otherwise self-deported by enticing them with highly subsidized healthcare benefits.
“The Final Rule is expected to result in 200,000 DACA recipients becoming newly eligible for a subsidized health plan,” the lawsuit states:
Subsidized health insurance through the [Obamacare] is a valuable public benefit that encourages unlawfully present alien beneficiaries to remain in the United States.The vast majority of DACA recipients have limited access to subsidized health care in their countries of origin. Where subsidized health care is available in their countries of origin, necessary drugs and medical equipment are often in short supply or unavailable. [Emphasis added]
The financial value of eligibility for [Obamacare] coverage providing access to superior medical care in the United States, when compared to limited or inadequate subsidized health care in an alien’s country of origin, constitutes a significant financial incentive for the alien to remain in the United States. [Emphasis added]
It is likely that aliens who would otherwise have returned to their countries of origin will instead remain in the United States because of the eligibility for [Obamacare] coverage provided by the Final Rule. [Emphasis added]
Similarly, state taxpayers will “suffer fiscal costs through the continued presence of DACA recipients in their respective jurisdictions,” the lawsuit alleges:
The Final Rule incentivizes DACA recipients, their children, and minors currently residing in Plaintiff States whose parents illegally entered the United States to remain in Plaintiff States and thereby causes Plaintiff States to expend additional education, healthcare, law enforcement, public assistance, and other limited resources. [Emphasis added]
…
Under current caselaw, states must allow minors who are not lawfully present in the United States to attend their schools. Consequently, all the Plaintiff States incur costs through the provision of K–12 public education to DACA recipients and their children, since some portion of the DACA recipients are either the parents of K–12 school-age children or are themselves K–12 school-age children. [Emphasis added]
DACA recipients also consume public benefits in the form of public-assistance, indigent legal defense, and emergency-care expenditures in Plaintiff States. States also bear the costs of the DACA program in the form of incarceration of DACA recipients who commit crimes. [Emphasis added]
Prior cost estimates have suggested that should about 100,000 DACA illegal aliens enroll in Obamacare, it would cost American taxpayers about $300 million annually. Other estimates have put the annual financial burden at about $2.8 billion.
In his 2012 State of the Union Address, Obama vowed to Americans that illegal aliens would not be eligible for Obamacare, to which Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted, “You lie!”
Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), former President Donald Trump’s running mate, introduced a bill last year to ban illegal aliens from being able to secure Obamacare benefits.
“There’s an unprecedented crisis at our southern border, we’ve got major conflicts around the world, and families all across Ohio are getting crushed by inflation,” Vance said following the announcement in May.
“Joe Biden’s response to all this is to give your hard-earned money away to illegal immigrants in the form of taxpayer-funded healthcare,” Vance said. “This is a slap in the face to every hardworking American who plays by the rules, and it would never happen if Donald Trump were president.”
The lawsuit is Kansas v. U.S. in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.