Afghan Population in U.S. Explodes, Majority Live on Welfare

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New analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reveals that the number of Afghans living in the U.S. has shot up to 133,000 in 2019 — more than three times the 44,000 Afghans who lived in the U.S. before the start of the Afghanistan War in 2001.

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“We also found that a large faction, by no means all, struggle in the United States,” CIS Director of Research Steven Camarota said in remarks.

Specifically, Camarota’s research found that more than 65 percent of households headed by Afghan immigrants use at least one major form of welfare — that is, food stamps, cash assistance, or Medicaid. If other forms of welfare were included in this tally, like free school lunch and public housing, “these high rates of welfare use would almost certainly be much higher,” Camarota notes.

Compare Afghan immigrants’ rate of welfare use to that of native-born Americans, where less than 25 percent of native-born American households use one major form of welfare.

Afghan immigrant households use more than three times the food stamps as native-born American households. In 2010, about 19 percent of Afghan immigrant households used food stamps, but that total has skyrocketed to 35 percent in 2019.

Likewise, the number of Afghan immigrant households that live in or near the U.S. poverty line is close to 51 percent. This is significantly higher than that of households headed by native-born Americans, where about 27 percent live in or near poverty.

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