California Gets 81.4% of All Federal Funding for Illegal Immigrants

A new federal report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and Families reveals that California gets 80%  of the federal funding for Illegal Immigrant Families.

More than $617 million in taxpayer-funded cash welfare went to California households headed by illegal immigrant parents last year.

In 2024, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families basic assistance was provided to more than 85,000 child-only households headed by a parent excluded from the assistance unit because of immigration status, and California was the primary driver of the national total, accounting for about 59,600 households and about $617.5 million, or roughly 81% of nationwide spending on these cases.

Here is what the report says about California:

California as the Primary Driver

The issue is national in scope, but California is the primary driver of the national totals. In FY2024, California accounted for about 59,622 affected households, or roughly 70% of the national total. The state’s annual cash assistance associated with those households reached about $617.5 million, or about 81% of nationwide spending on these cases. At the adult level, California accounted for about 76,428 of the 106,148 excluded non-recipient parents identified through the immigration-status work-eligibility indicator, or about 72%.

California also devoted a substantial share of its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) basic assistance spending to these cases. Spending on child-only cases involving immigration-status-ineligible parents equaled about 15.8% of all FY2024 TANF basic assistance spending in California. That concentration was accompanied by a sharp rise in benefit levels over time, as the average monthly benefit in California for child-only households with immigration-status-ineligible parents increased from an estimated $408 in FY2013 to $875 in FY2024, a rise of 114.5%. No other state approached California’s combination of scale, concentration, and fiscal impact.

According to the California and Budget Policy Center, almost 4 in 5 federal dollars that are projected to flow through California’s state budget in 2025-26 — $136.6 billion — support vital health and human services (HHS) for millions of Californians, including children, seniors, and families with low incomes.

And one-third of California’s state budget is made up of federal funding. The enacted state budget for 2025-26 includes almost $175 billion in federal funds. This is over one-third (35.2%) of the total state budget.