Migrants with CBP One appointments were processed at the Paso Del Norte Bridge in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 20, 2025, before President Donald Trump ended the program.

Republicans are claiming Democrats shut down the government "to demand free health care for illegals."

But is it true?

The United States government ground to a halt at 12:01 a.m. Oct. 1, after Congress failed to reach a deal to fund the federal budget.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told CNBC on the morning of the Oct. 1 shutdown that Democrats "want to restore taxpayer funded benefits, American taxpayer funded benefits to illegal aliens."

"We're not doing that," he added.

But that's not what Democrats are demanding at all.

Democrats say they're fighting to restore Medicaid benefits that were cut in President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful" tax and budget bill, which he signed into law in July.

The morning of after the shutdown began, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told MSNBC that Republicans are not in any way asking for health care for people in the country without legal status.

"It's a total, absolute [expletive] lie," he said.

Do 'illegal' immigrants get free health care?

Undocumented immigrants are largely ineligible for federal health benefits, said Leo Cuello, research professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.

They don't qualify for comprehensive Medicaid coverage, Medicare or the Children's Health Insurance Program. And they can't purchase federally subsidized health plans on exchanges backed by the Affordable Care Act.

There are immigrants on Medicaid in the United States. So-called "noncitizen enrollees" in Medicaid accounted for 6% of the total, according to KFF, a nonprofit that conducts research and polling on health policy.

Not being a citizen isn't the same as residing in the United States illegally; there are many ways to live here as a legal resident, without full U.S. citizenship. This is where the political argument gets messy.

Medicaid is a joint federal-state program. The new GOP tax and spending law tightens up access to Medicaid benefits in several ways including by prohibiting an individual from being enrolled in multiple state plans; ensuring deceased individuals don't remain enrolled; and by instituting quarterly eligibility screening.

It also rolls back a Medicaid expansion that could leave 10 million Americans uninsured, Cuello said. An additional 4 million people may no longer be able to afford insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchanges when tax credits expire at the end of the year.

But the law also quietly excluded from Medicaid eligibility certain classes of lawful immigrants who previously might have qualified for benefits.

Who is considered a legal immigrant?

The Trump administration and many Republicans have taken the view this year that certain immigrants once considered "legal" should no longer be.

For example, the Department of Homeland Security this year canceled humanitarian parole under the Biden-era Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans program, or CHNV. DHS also revoked the Temporary Protected Status of some Venezuelans, Haitians and others, though the revocations are tied up in federal court.

In March, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service's list of so-called "qualified aliens" who were eligible for Medicaid coverage included only lawful immigrants: legal permanent residents, refugees, people granted asylum, people granted humanitarian parole including Ukrainians and Afghans, certain Cubans and Haitians and certain victims of human trafficking and domestic violence, among others.

Even among the "qualified aliens," several groups were required to wait five to seven years after their arrival in the United States before they could become eligible, according to an April 2025 report by Congressional Research Service.

The new law restricts eligibility only to U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, i.e. green card holders and certain Cuban and Haitian immigrants.

"Refugees, victims of trafficking, victims of domestic violence, people here for humanitarian reasons and people granted political asylum are all groups who today are in Medicaid and tomorrow will not be," Cuello said.

The law also restricts payments to states for medical assistance – including emergency care – furnished to anyone who isn't a citizen or lawful permanent resident. In 1986, Congress passed a law requiring that anyone in need of emergency care receive it, regardless of who they are or their ability to pay.

"Currently the federal government pays a share of those costs," Cuello said. "This law says the federal government will reduce how much money it is paying."

Democrats want to reverse many of the health care-related provisions included in the new act to keep more Americans, and some lawful immigrants, eligible for Medicaid. They say the shutdown is over preserving healthcare access, and there is no proposal to provide free health care to people living in the country illegally.

Lauren Villagran covers immigration for USA TODAY and can be reached at lvillagran@usatoday.com. Sarah Wire, a Senior National Reporter for USA TODAY, can be reached at swire@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Can undocumented immigrants get 'free health care' or Medicaid?

Reporting by Lauren Villagran, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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