Why does America give billion-dollar tax credits to illegal immigrants?

This election year, illegal immigration has jumped to the very top of the list of voters’ most important issues.

If you watch the news, you might not be surprised by that — because of chaos at the border, record-breaking numbers of border crossings under Joe Biden, and high-profile crimes committed by people who shouldn’t be here in the first place.

Nearly three-quarters of voters oppose extending the child tax credit to illegal immigrants, including 81% of independents and most Democrats.

But there’s an extra little twist of the knife this tax season — and it’s one you probably didn’t even notice when filling out your 1040.

Every year, billions of dollars are taken out of your tax returns and put into the pockets of illegal aliens in the form of child tax credits. If you just spent an April night at your kitchen table, making sure you follow the letter of the law to do your duty as an American taxpayer, that’s not a comforting thought.

And it matters more than just for today. That tax credit affects the number on the bottom of your tax form today — because taxpayers, every single one of us, are paying for it — and it matters to tomorrow’s taxpayers who are going to be on the hook for a whole lot more.

Frankly, the price tag today is bad enough.

Just for illegal aliens, America dedicates about $2.7 billion a year to cover the cost of the child tax credit. That’s about half the size of the entire budget for the Food and Drug Administration and more than twice the budget of the entire National Weather Service.

If you still don’t think $2.7 billion sounds like “real money” to taxpayers, consider this: The IRS collected a total of $5.8 billion from Vermont in 2022 — an entire U.S. state.

And it could be just a drop in the bucket if leftists get their way.

In 2017, Congress significantly tightened — but did not eliminate — this loophole as part of the Trump tax cuts. The 2017 restrictions are set to expire after 2025, and Democrats have proposed repealing them altogether. Meanwhile, a proposal currently before the U.S. Senate would expand the child tax credit without closing the loophole that still allows illegal immigrants to claim it.

The polling on the issue couldn’t be clearer. Nearly three-quarters of voters oppose allowing the child tax credit to go to illegal immigrants, including 81% of independents and even most Democrats.

Those overwhelming numbers should be eye-opening to any Democrat worried about this November.

Of course, the child tax credit has paid off for them at the ballot box before. As recently as 2021, Democrats held a 13-point lead on the generic ballot among voters who received child tax credit checks in 2021. Those monthly checks, you recall, were pushed through Congress as part of President Biden's $1.8 trillion spending package that helped spur inflation to record highs.

But that lead disappeared as soon as the checks themselves did: Republicans held a six-point lead with the same group by April 2022.

The truth is that policymakers should care about much more than just the next election.

The children we list as tax “dependents” today are the tax filers of tomorrow, and they’re going to be paying a higher and higher price every year the government gets bigger. If the federal government did the right thing today and ended this tax perk for illegal immigrants, it would save taxpayers $25 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

That’s a lot more than just Vermont — that’s a combined total higher than the amount 14 states sent to Washington in 2022.

It’s a special kind of out of touch to think that much money “doesn’t matter” to the people who must pay for it — those of us who signed our name at the bottom of the check we mailed off on April 15.

The reality is that illegal immigration is a top issue for voters in 2024, and inflation is still right behind it. It’s time to end the child tax credit for those who are here illegally — for today’s taxpayers and tomorrow’s.