GOP Pushes ‘Big... Brazen’ Lie About Immigrants to Justify Ripping Healthcare Away from Millions

The US government officially shut down at midnight on Wednesday after weeks of failed negotiations, following Democrats' refusal to back a Republican spending plan that did not reverse the GOP's massive cuts to healthcare spending.

In order to support the GOP's continuing resolution, which needs 60 votes to advance in the Senate, Democratic leaders have long insisted that Republicans extend a Biden-era tax credit that had significantly lowered insurance premiums for around 22 million people who purchased health insurance on the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) online insurance marketplace.

KFF found last month that the tax credits have reduced insurance premiums by 44% on average—over $700 per enrollee—and have contributed to the number of people purchasing insurance on the exchanges more than doubling to over 24 million in 2025.

The GOP allowed the credit to expire at the end of the year during negotiations for President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July. If they are not extended, the average recipient can expect their health insurance premiums to more than double in 2026, which KFF estimates will result in over 4 million people becoming unable to afford their health insurance plans.

Democrats have also demanded that Republicans roll back some of the GOP bill's $793 billion worth of cuts to Medicaid, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will result in about 7.8 million more people becoming uninsured and has begun to result in the closures of rural hospitals around the country.

Instead of negotiating to stave off the coming healthcare apocalypse, GOP leaders came up with a different solution: to make up an overt lie. As the shutdown drew nearer, Republicans abruptly shifted to the talking point that Democrats were holding the government hostage unless Republicans agreed to give free healthcare to "illegal aliens."

“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,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Vice President JD Vance said Democrats "want to give massive amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, to illegal aliens for their healthcare while Americans are struggling to pay their healthcare bills.”

And shortly after Democratic leaders expressed the belief that they'd gotten through to the president during negotiations, Trump dashed any hopes of a resolution by posting a bizarre artificially generated video of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) talking about his plans to "give all these illegal aliens free healthcare... so they can vote for us" while standing next to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who was edited to appear with a sombrero and a mustache while mariachi music played in the background.

It is a bit that they have continued using to lampoon Democrats who have demanded that Trump treat the negotiations seriously.

"The lie is so big and so brazen that it’s almost not worth addressing, because doing so gives the claim far more credibility than it deserves," Jonathan Cohn explained for The Bulwark, a right-leaning publication. "But it’s become ubiquitous in Republican talking points, from the president on down. There’s also a chance some people will believe it, because it feeds into some common misconceptions about healthcare and immigration policy, as well as preconceptions of how the parties operate."

Undocumented immigrants in the United States are barred from applying for federally funded healthcare, including Medicaid and subsidized plans from the ACA. They also cannot receive, as Trump claimed, "Medicare—the Cadillac Medicare."

Democrats have called for lawful immigrants, including legal asylum recipients, green-card holders, and other legal permanent residents, to have their healthcare restored after the Big Beautiful Bill stripped them of eligibility for these programs.

"Republicans might not want these people to be eligible for those subsidies," Cohn said. "But these people are not 'illegal aliens.' They have permission to be in the United States."

Another persistent claim has been that millions of undocumented immigrants are lying about their status to obtain benefits they shouldn't, which Republicans also frequently invoked during the debate over cuts to Medicaid in June, including the audacious lie from Senate Republicans that the bill “protects Medicaid for eligible Americans by removing 1.4 million illegals.”

"Even if it were true that millions of Americans were getting Affordable Care Act insurance through deception or error, there’s no reason to think that large numbers of undocumented immigrants would be among them," Cohn explained.

This is because enrollment systems cross-check Social Security numbers with information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Meanwhile, Healthcare.gov requires noncitizens to provide other forms of documentation, like green-cards or entry permits, to demonstrate their lawful status.

The only federal healthcare subsidy that even theoretically benefits undocumented immigrants is "Emergency Medicaid," which reimburses hospitals that provide mostly emergency care to immigrants ineligible for federal healthcare subsidies. The GOP bill cut $28 billion from this program, and Democrats have called for it to be restored, along with other Medicaid cuts.

However, that $28 billion is only about 3% of the total healthcare cuts Democrats are calling to restore and less than 1% of total Medicaid spending. Moreover, only a portion of the beneficiaries are undocumented immigrants—they also include many legal residents who are not yet eligible for government benefits.

"A lot of the money, Cohn said, "is spent on truly emergency services like resuscitating somebody from a heart attack or delivering a baby that hospitals and clinics are obligated to provide, thanks to a 1980s law, signed by Ronald Reagan, that prohibits denying care to people who need stabilizing or lifesaving treatment."

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act has been one of the least popular pieces of legislation in recent memory. According to the most recent data from Pew Research in August, 46% disapprove of the tax and spending law, while 32% approve. Just 11% said they strongly approve, while 33% said they strongly disapprove.

The bill's cuts to Medicaid are especially unpopular, but Republicans have managed to push off many of the worst effects until after the 2026 midterms. The same cannot be said about the ACA subsidy cuts, which will be felt immediately in the new year.

Republicans are well aware that being blamed for those cuts could be destructive to their electoral chances. One survey conducted in July by two of Trump’s most trusted pollsters found that for Republicans in the most competitive congressional districts, “a 3-point deficit becomes a 15-point deficit” against the generic Democrat if they allow the healthcare premium tax credit to expire.

As Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of immigrant advocacy group America's Voice, said Tuesday as the shutdown approached, "The Trump administration and their allies in Congress are going back to their repulsive yet tried-and-true tactic of scapegoating immigrants to distract from the fact that their policies are taking away Americans’ healthcare and damaging our economy."