Where and how we spend our money reflects what is truly important to us.
For more than two centuries, the Illinois state budget has been no different – a reflection of the priorities of a majority of the members of the General Assembly and the Governor.
Education, transportation, public health, agriculture, public safety – the list of important priorities for the state and its leaders goes on and on.
But in 2020 Illinois moved in a new direction, adding a new priority to its list: taxpayer-funded health benefits for those in the country illegally.
During an abbreviated 2020 spring session due to the COVID pandemic, a new program was created in the budget to provide taxpayer-funded health care benefits to seniors in the country illegally and residing in Illinois.
In the following years the program and its budget were expanded. What started out as a program for senior citizens now reached to include people in their early 40s. Adding new people to the program would, of course, also add to its expense, until last year the spending on the expanded program had cost Illinois taxpayers at least $1.6 billion.
House Republicans spoke out passionately against continuing to provide taxpayer-funded health care for non-citizens.
“The Democrats’ giveaways to illegal immigrants are incentives for them to come to Illinois,” said Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer at a March 2025 news conference. “If you build it, they will come. And they did.”
By that time, total spending on the program had exploded to $2.2 billion.
But it wasn’t just that the state had spent billions on health care for people who weren’t supposed to be here in the first place. It was also the statement it made about where the state’s priorities were.
After the passage of the FY25 budget in May 2024, State Representative Brandun Schweizer, a 21-year U.S. Marine, pointed out one of its most glaring flaws in priorities.
“Within the budget, four times the amount of money allocated to the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs is set to be spent on noncitizens,” he said. “It is our responsibility as lawmakers and leaders of the state to take care of our Illinois citizens first, especially veterans. A lack of fiscal responsibility and misplaced spending priorities leave out hardworking, middle-class Illinoisans.”
At last, the outrage had reached a breaking point. Prioritizing funds for non-citizen health care over funds for veterans services (and at a rate of almost 4-to-1!) proved to be a bridge too far.
Faced with reduced revenue and saddled with an unpopular program that put a spotlight on out-of-whack priorities, statehouse Democrats were forced to retreat in 2025.
The health benefits program for non-citizens was scaled back in the FY26 budget, which Governor Pritzker signed in June 2025. Many of the expansions were eliminated, and funding for the program was cut down to $110 million.
Veterans services in FY26 were budgeted at just over $241 million.
House Republicans, like the rest of Illinois’ taxpayers, were still locked out of the closed room where the budget was created.
But they could claim credit for raising awareness and opposition of the public at such badly misplaced priorities as spending four times as much on non-citizens health care as on veterans services.
Find out more about services available for veterans in Illinois by visiting the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.