text: myth: illegals collect welfare.how can they possibly do that if proof of legal status is required at the dhs ? i work there,so i know ! it is quite possible that not everyone is as diligent in their work as you are. also very possible that the workers in question think they are helping by doing what they do. alot of the people in question had children who were american citzens, though their parents are not. because the children themselves are eligible citizens, they can get welfare or food stamps to feed them. in fact, through an article in the l.a times, the county supervisor said that about 100,000 children of illegal immigrants in the county collect $276 million in annual welfare benefits. he also stated that 98,703 children of 57,458 undocumented parents received cal-works welfare checks in january, or a total of 156,161 recipients. most of this was because the children were citizens. though i am not familiar with cal-works or what benefit it entails, studies have found that due to 1996 restrictions, it is harder for illegals as well as natives to get welfare. but, the proportion of illegals who get food stamps and medacaid is significantly higher than that of the native population. in fact, it was found post 1996 reform that the percent of illegals who naturalized jumped significantly, all among those who had once received aid. it was also found that one in three families headed by an illegal immigrant is using one type of welfare or another. and because they are not usually educated people and are often low skill workers, the ones that do contribute taxes contribute much less than other families. for this reason, if we legalized them tax payments would increase 77%, but the net deficit would rise to 117%, because they would be legal to receive all the services that they are currently having difficulty accessing now.