But a range of GOP priorities that were included — from increased funding for border enforcement to money for America’s 250th anniversary celebration next year — pushed the bill over the line with many in corporate America also in favor and focused on the tax piece.

Economists have likewise noted the final price tag, which could top $4 trillion. Also critiqued was an accounting gimmick Republicans employed to hide much of that red ink that Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called “a massive cover-up” in a withering statement that added that the bill was “the single most expensive, dishonest, and reckless budget reconciliation bill ever.”

Tesla ( TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk emerged during final negotiations as the top business-world critic attacking the bill’s price and how it treats clean energy. He said in recent days that the $3.3 trillion increase in debt expected from the bill makes a “mockery” of his work at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Clean energy companies are already paying perhaps the keenest attention, with government support for EVs and solar projects set to be eliminated in the years ahead due to changes in the bill.

It’s a bill also set to be felt keenly in American pocketbooks with provisions like no taxes on tips, cuts to student loans and the Pell Grant program, changes to 529 plans for education expenses, an increase in state tax deductions, and a range of other provisions that both business and consumer groups will be digesting for months.

Medicaid and the inclusion of a $5 trillion debt ceiling increase were just two of the most controversial pieces of a complex bill that is set to reshape whole swathes of the US economy, especially around taxes, energy, and healthcare.

The process proved exceptionally contentious largely over healthcare provisions that are set to extract hundreds of billions in government savings but could cause millions to lose coverage.

In the end, the megabill moved through the Senate on a 50-50 tally that required Vice President JD Vance to break the tie before the 870-page bill passed the House a few days later in a vote of 218-214 .

Lawmakers moved Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” to the president for his signature and fulfilled a self-imposed deadline to pass it by July 4 after a series of intense and emotional debates consumed the past week on Capitol Hill.

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Business Roundtable Chair Chuck Robbins, the CEO of Cisco (CSCO), offered following the final vote that the bill would allow “American businesses to better plan, invest and build for the future.”

Trump for his part worked relentless to flip votes and get the bill passed calling it at one point the “greatest bill ever passed.”

Here is a closer look at three ways the current version the bill would impact the business world.

Changes for both the individual and corporate tax structure

A centerpiece of the bill — and far and away the source of the most expensive provisions — surrounded taxes.

The bill’s main impetus has long been to permanently extend tax cuts for individuals contained in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed into law on a temporary basis during his first term.

The bill would represent a continuation of the status quo for taxpayers. As one example, the bill is set to mean America’s highest earners will carry on with a top rate of 37%.

The bill also provides new tax credits for individuals by fulfilling signature Trump campaign promises — albeit slightly less fulsomely than in the House version — via the elimination of taxes on tips, overtime, and car loan interest. It also offers an expanded standard deduction for seniors after Trump promised to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits.

Employees will be able to deduct up to $25,000 annually for tips and overtime.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, center, and his colleagues spoke to reporters after the Senate passed President Donald Trump’s so-called “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” Act on July 1. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) · Andrew Harnik via Getty Images

Business owners, meanwhile, are keenly focused on a series of tax deductions that will reinstate credits for corporations for things like property depreciation, capital investments, new factory construction, interest expenses, and research and development costs.

Many of these provisions were present in the House version, but only temporarily. Permanency was a key Senate priority and is now included in the bill, even as it increased the price tag by hundreds of billions of dollars.

Senate Finance Committee chair Mike Crapo shepherded the tax changes and celebrated passage with a statement that said corporate provisions give “businesses the certainty they need to make the long-term investments that power economic growth.”

The bill also makes permanent the pass-through deduction at a rate of 20%. That deduction — formally known as the 199A deduction — is focused on often smaller businesses organized as S corporations or partnerships.

The Senate version also includes an array of other tax changes, including a $40,000 annual deduction for state and local taxes (SALT) for the coming years, an expanded child tax credit, enhanced credits for “opportunity zones,” and so-called MAGA accounts.

A focus on energy and healthcare

The effect on the energy sector could also be profound, especially after a last-minute series of changes turned the bill even further against the clean energy industry while offering new support for fossil fuels.

The bill has long been expected to phase out Biden-era clean energy tax credits, but the final bill will shut them down faster than many had expected.

The proposal to eliminate EV credits would even take effect on Sept. 30 of this year.

A late addition to the bill also raised worries that a new tax on wind and solar projects completed after 2027 was in the offing. But a flurry of objections led to a moderation, with the final draft quietly removing that excise tax.

“The bill’s targeted tweaks to solar and wind tax credits, especially the phaseout language, are a relative market positive given the onerous nature of the previously proposed excise tax,” is how Ed Mills of Raymond James summed up the net effects there.

President Trump speaks to the media before a trip to Florida on July 1. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) · ASSOCIATED PRESS

At the same time, new last-minute inducements were unveiled for fossil fuels, including one classifying coal as a critical mineral for a government manufacturing credit.

“We’re doing coal,” Trump said in a recent interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” where he also called solar energy projects “ugly as hell.”

It was a mix that led Musk and others to predict that the larger effect of the bill would be to cut off clean energy, hurt the overall energy grid, and perhaps lead to higher utility bills.

At one point, Musk called the bill “utterly insane” and vowed that members of Congress who voted yes “will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”

The bill is also set to implement major changes to the healthcare system.

Healthcare negotiations continued until nearly the literal last minute, and the overall package is set to trim the government’s Medicaid spending by around $900 billion in the years ahead.

Corners of the sector, like rural hospitals, are set to be most directly impacted.

Republican Sen. Collins of Maine flipped against the bill late in the process and explained her no vote afterwards as driven “primarily from the harmful impact [the bill] will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural health care providers like our hospitals and nursing homes.”

And the bottom line for patients — according to an accounting from the Congressional Budget Office that came in over the weekend — is that 11.8 million additional Americans would become uninsured by 2034 because of the healthcare provisions.

Some that lose coverage would be illegal immigrants, as Republicans often point out, but millions of US citizens are expected to lose coverage if the bill is enacted because of additional requirements to qualify for coverage.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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New York CNN —

President Donald Trump has promised that the “big, beautiful bill” passed by Congress will be one of the most successful pieces of legislation in American history.

Of course, the ultimate beauty of this sweeping legislation is very much in the eye of the beholder.

The bill could end up boosting some workers and industries, while others may be left worse off.

Better off

Corporate America

Big business groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, applauded the Senate’s passage of the bill on Tuesday.

Corporations are betting they will benefit from the legislation making permanent the tax breaks in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The package would restore a tax break from the 2017 tax package that allowed businesses to fully write off the cost of equipment in the first year it was purchased. The incentive has been phasing out since 2023.

Also, the legislation would once again allow businesses to write off the cost of research and development in the year it was incurred. The TCJA required that companies deduct those expenses over five years, starting in 2022.

Manufacturers

Manufacturers are especially happy that the bill would make significant changes to how the US tax code treats the construction of new manufacturing facilities.

Businesses will be allowed to fully and immediately deduct the cost of building new manufacturing facilities. This temporary provision is retroactive to January 19, 2025 and continues for construction that begins before January 1, 2029.

And in a bid to incentivize more chipmaking in America, the legislation would enhance tax credits for semiconductor firms building manufacturing facilities in the United States.

Small businesses and partnerships

The National Federation of Independent Business, the leading small business lobbying group, praised the legislation for making permanent a special deduction for the owners of certain pass-through entities who pay businesses taxes on their individual tax returns.

That deduction, which applies to small businesses and partnerships formed by lawyers, doctors and investors, would get increased in the House version of the bill from 20% to 23%. The Senate bill kept it at 20%.

High-income Americans

The net income for the top 20% of earners would increase by nearly $13,000 per year, after taxes and transfers, according to an analysis of a near-final version of the Senate bill by Penn Wharton Budget Model.

That amounts to a 3% average increase in income for those households.

For the top 0.1% of earners, the average annual income gain would amount to more than $290,000, according to Penn Wharton.

Americans living in high-tax states should also benefit because the bill temporarily increases limits on deductions for state and local taxes for householders making up to $500,000 annually to $40,000 per year for five years.

However, millionaires who lose their jobs will not be able to collect unemployment benefits, according to a recent provision added to the Senate bill.

Workers who receive tips and overtime

Certain workers will receive an extra tax break through 2028.

Employees who work in jobs that traditionally receive tips could deduct up to $25,000 in tip income from their federal income taxes, while workers who receive overtime could deduct up to $12,500 of that extra pay.

Income limits apply, however.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, center, celebrates with fellow Republicans after final passage of President Donald Trump’s signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol in Washington, on Thursday. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Worse off

Low-income Americans

Many people at the lowest end of the income ladder would be worse off because the package would enact historic cuts to the nation’s safety net program, particularly Medicaid and food stamps.

Among the many changes to these programs would be the addition of federally mandated work requirements to Medicaid for the first time in its 60-year history and the expansion of the work mandate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the formal name for food stamps. Parents of children ages 14 and up are among those who would have to work, volunteer, take classes or participate in job training to keep their benefits.

Millions of low-income Americans are expected to lose their benefits because of the work requirements and the bill’s other measures affecting Medicaid and food stamps. Notably, few of those dropped from Medicaid coverage would have access to job-based health insurance, according to a Congressional Budget Office report about the House version of the package.

Those in the lowest-income group, earning less than $18,000 a year, would see a $165 reduction in their after-tax, after-transfer income, once the safety net cuts are taken into account, according to Penn Wharton. That’s a 1.1% decrease.

The next level, who earn between $18,000 and $53,000, would get a $30 bump in income, or 0.1%.

Middle-income households would see their income rise by $1.430, or 1.8%. They earn between $53,000 and $96,000.

The health provisions won’t only hit low-income Americans. The Senate is also tightening verification requirements for the Affordable Care Act’s federal premium subsidies, which could also leave some middle-income Americans uninsured.

All told, the bill could result in more than 10 million more people being uninsured in 2034, according to a CNN analysis of the bill and CBO forecasts.

Hospitals

Hospitals are not happy with the health care provisions of the bill, which would reduce the support they receive from states to care for Medicaid enrollees and leave them with more uncompensated care costs for treating uninsured patients.

“The real-life consequences of these nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts – the largest ever proposed by Congress – will result in irreparable harm to our health care system, reducing access to care for all Americans and severely undermining the ability of hospitals and health systems to care for our most vulnerable patients,” said Rick Pollack, CEO of the American Hospital Association.

The association said it is “deeply disappointed” with the bill, even though it contains a $50 billion fund to help rural hospitals contend with the Medicaid cuts, which hospitals say is not nearly enough to make up for the shortfall.

Clean energy and EVs

The Senate removed a last-minute excise tax on wind and solar that experts warned would have been a “killer” for the clean energy industry.

However, the Senate bill still strips tax incentives for wind, solar and other renewable energy projects by 2027 and gives developers stringent requirements to claim them.

The American Clean Power Association slammed the legislation as a “step backward for American energy policy” that will eliminate jobs and raise electric bills.

Electric vehicle makers could also be left worse off because the GOP bill ends EV tax credits of up to $7,500 at the end of September. Previously those tax credits were scheduled to last through 2032, providing a powerful incentive for car buyers.

Deficit hawks

The Senate version of the package would increase the deficit by about $3.4 trillion over the next decade, according to CBO.

Adding trillions to the debt risks lifting already elevated interest rates. That in turn will make it more expensive for Americans to finance the purchase of a car or a home and for businesses to borrow money to grow.

Not only that, but higher rates would force the federal government to devote even greater resources to finance its own mountain of debt.

The CBO expects US federal government interest costs to surpass $1 trillion per year.

US spending on interest has already more than tripled since 2017, surpassing what the federal government’s entire defense budget.

With the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” headed to President Trump’s desk for signature Friday, wealthy Americans are poised to receive significant tax breaks partly offset by steep cuts to social welfare programs.

The bill makes 2017 tax breaks from Trump’s first term permanent, while adding some new tax breaks, like no taxes on tips up to $25,000 and a “senior deduction” that will allow more people over 65 to avoid Social Security taxes.

Some policy analyses show that the tax cuts for lower earners may be offset by the new costs they incur from lost support for health care and food assistance.

Most households — about 85 percent — would get a tax cut in 2026, according to an analysis from the Tax Policy Center. But while many of the bill’s changes are permanent, other provisions, such as the new deduction for seniors, are set to expire within a couple years. The center estimates that by 2030 only about 70 percent of households would continue to have a tax break.

The center also estimates that nearly 60 percent of the tax benefits would go to those in the top quintile of annual incomes (about $217,000 or more). Those households would receive an average tax cut of $12,500.

While other estimates of the bill’s tax changes by income bracket vary, they largely agree that the tax breaks generally increase moving up the income ladder.

Here’s how the bill would impact your taxes.

High-income earners (>$217,000)

For taxes filed in 2026, households making between $217,000 and $318,000 would see their after-tax income raise 2.6 percent, a tax break of about $5,400. For Americans making $318,000 to $460,000 — in the 90th to 95th percentile — that cut would be about $8,900, or a 3.1 percent increase to their after-tax income.

Those making between $460,000 and $1.1 million would receive the biggest break: a $21,000 change, increasing their after-tax income by 4.4 percent.

The top 1 percent and the top 0.1 percent — households making more than $1.1 million or $5 million — would see their after-tax incomes increase 3.5 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively.

Middle-income earners ($50,000-$200,000)

The tax breaks for the rest of Americans are far less substantial, according to the center’s estimates.

Households making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year would see their after-tax income increase by 2.5 percent, about a $3,000 tax break. For those making between $75,000 and $100,000, the tax cut as a percentage of income is similar — at about $1,700 or 2.3 percent.

Americans earning between $50,000 and $75,000 will have a $1,000 tax break.

Low-income earners (<$50,000)

For those making between $40,000 and $50,000, that cut will be about $630. Those are after-tax boosts of 1.9 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.

Those in the bottom quintile of incomes, making below $34,600 a year, would see their taxes decrease by about $150, or a 0.8 percent increase in their after-tax income.

However, benefits that low-income Americans could see in tax breaks could be offset by the bill’s sweeping cuts to Medicaid and food stamps.

Federal Medicaid spending is estimated to decrease by about $1 trillion, resulting in about 12 million low-income Americans losing their health insurance by 2034, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The bill also includes work requirements for Medicaid and for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as food stamps, which could disenroll millions from both programs.

Other new tax cuts

Many of the bill’s tax deductions will start in 2025, and some of them will be permanent. That includes a permanent increase in the child tax credit to $2,200 and an increase in the standard deduction by $750.

Other new tax cuts, especially those core to Trump’s campaign promises, are set to expire in a couple of years. A new $6,000 deduction for Americans over 65 will last only through 2028. A $25,000 deduction designed to eliminate taxes on tips will also only last for three years. The same goes for another $12,500 deduction meant to curb taxes on overtime.

The amount that households can deduct in state and local taxes on their federal returns, known as the SALT cap, will also increase to $40,000. Previously capped at $10,000, SALT deductions were a major sticking point among House Republicans during the first rounds of negotiations on the bill in May.

All these cuts are expensive, although estimates vary. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the bill would add $3.4 trillion to the debt over 10 years while the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said it would add $4.1 trillion. The conservative Cato Institute put the figure as high as $6 trillion.

Republicans who claim to be fiscal hawks railed against the bill’s impact on the national debt, saying it would inflict pain on future generations, but many ultimately voted for it.

Congress passed no tax on tips in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’ Here’s how it works

toggle caption Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Tipped workers in the U.S. could see significant changes to their taxes after Congress approved President Trump’s legislative agenda on Thursday. This week, the GOP-controlled Senate and House narrowly passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — a massive spending and tax package that creates limited and temporary tax exemptions for tips, among other tax cuts.

Once the provision goes into effect, workers will be able to deduct $25,000 in tips annually from their taxable income. After that, tips will be federally taxed.

“If you look at the data on tipped income, that would cover the majority of individuals earning tips in the United States,” said Garrett Watson of the Tax Foundation, an organization that advocates for simplifying the tax code in pursuit of economic growth. “So, it’s still pretty generous for most workers.”

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If a worker makes more than $150,000 a year, though, their tipped income will start to be taxed.

“That helps to sort of carve out some of the very high earners who may be incentivized to recharacterize their income tips inappropriately,” Watson said.

A chief concerns among tax experts during the campaign was that hedge fund managers and lawyers would turn themselves into “tipped workers” in order to skirt federal taxes altogether.

The package also restricts tax-free tips to worker at “an occupation which customarily and regularly received tips” — but the text does not define these jobs individually.

“It will ultimately fall, at the end of the day, to Treasury and the IRS administers and for this consistent with the language,” Watson said.

The law, if not extended by Congress at a later date, will phase out at the end of 2028 — near the end of Trump’s presidency.

A political promise kept

Trump campaigned heavily on the “no taxes on tips” policy during the 2024 presidential race. In June, Trump said he got the idea from a Las Vegas tipped-worker. By August, former Vice President Kamala Harris also campaigned on eliminating taxes on tips.

With the bill heading to the the president’s desk, tipped workers could see their federal taxes shrink “as soon as later this year” depending on the speed of the IRS and Treasury Department, according to Watson.

“Especially going into next season, folks will see that adjustment in their taxes and a potential refund for any withholding on that tipped income,” Watson said.

The “no tax on tips” idea had bipartisan supporters in Congress including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., and Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev.

In addition to disagreements over the specifics of the no-tax-on-tips policy, Democrats in Congress universally opposed the package, largely citing cuts to Medicaid. A government analysis predicts the law will strip health insurance from more than ten million Americans over the next decade.

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“There is no spin for the human suffering they’re causing,” Horsford said in a statement Thursday. “This is Robin Hood in reverse, and Republicans would be wise to remember that they won’t have the last word here — the American people will, on Election Day.”

On Monday, Horsford offered an amendment to make no taxes on tips permanent, instead of temporary. His amendment failed.

Buchanan, though, celebrated the policy’s passage. “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the definition of promises made and promises kept,” he said in statement to NPR Thursday.

What does no taxes on tips mean for Americans?

While it dominated the campaign and messaging from the Trump White House, Executive Director at the Yale Budget Lab Martha Gimbel — a former Biden administration official — said she doesn’t think this law will have a significant impact on American workers and wages.

“Overall, tipped work is a really small sliver of the labor market,” Gimbel said. “It’s about two and a half percent of all employment.”

Moreover, Gimbel said the policy won’t affect the taxes of lower-income tipped workers.

“Very low income Americans are not going to benefit from this, largely because they already have little to no taxable income,” Gimbel said. “And so what you are largely seeing is that this provision will benefit people who are in the middle, upper-middle income brackets.”

Gimbel said middle-class tipped workers and their employers will reap the most benefits and may take advantage of the new tax exemption.

“Let’s take a hairdresser,” Gimbel said. “It would be very plausible to me that they might lower the cost of a haircut, but say that they expect the tips to go up. We’ll see in years to come if that happens.”

For Gimbel, the no tax on tips law should be taken in the broader context of the entire bill.

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“Our analysis suggests that if your income is above 3.3 million, you get a tax cut of over 118 thousand,” Gimbel said. “And if you’re in the bottom quintile, once SNAP and Medicaid cuts are taken into account, on average, you’re losing $560.”

“It’s a really regressive bill and it’s incredibly expensive,” she said.

What should tipped workers do now?

Tipped workers should wait for more guidance from the IRS and the Treasury Department, Watson said.

Once new guidance is released, tipped workers could update their W-4 withholdings to reflect the newly tax-exempt tips. Or workers can wait for a refund when they file in the spring.

“I do expect for a lot of folks to use software,” Watson said. “This will be quickly incorporated into next year’s filing season and will be something that’s that’s asked for. But that’s always something to watch for as well, just to make sure it’s properly accounted for.”

Watson also noted that many tipped workers hold multiple jobs. He cautioned these workers that only $25,000 of their annual tips will be tax free — even across multiple tipped jobs.

How Trump’s tax cut and policy bill aims to ‘supercharge’ immigration enforcement

toggle caption John Moore/Getty Images

President Trump’s signature domestic policy bill is headed to his desk, marking a historic federal investment in immigration enforcement.

The House cleared Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Thursday — meeting the president’s self-imposed deadline of July 4.

The massive package sets aside about $170 billion to support the Trump’s administration’s border and immigration goals, which includes detaining and deporting a record number of people from the U.S.

Earlier this week, White House border czar Tom Homan told reporters that Congress needed to pass the bill in order for the federal government to buy more detention beds.

“The more beds that we have, the more bad guys we arrest,” he added.

Both critics and supporters say carrying out Trump’s immigration agenda will depend on how effectively federal agencies implement and deploy those resources.

“It will absolutely supercharge immigration enforcement over time, but it’s not gonna happen overnight,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “So how quickly the Trump administration is able to use this money to fuel its mass deportations campaign is a real question.”

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Immigration enforcement

The final bill allocates $45 billion for immigration detention centers, as well as about $30 billion to hire more ICE personnel, for transportation costs, and to maintain ICE facilities, among other spending. It comes as detention centers operate beyond their capacity.

The American Immigration Council estimates that the new funding could expand detention capacity to “at least 116,000 beds.”

Bush-Joseph said the money may help reduce overcrowding and improve staffing. But she is also concerned that it will lead to a broader use of detention.

After migrants are identified as removable from the U.S., they may be released ahead of their court dates, held in local jails, or placed in ICE detention. The Trump administration has made plans to end the policy known as “catch and release” — which allows people to be released from detention while they await an immigration court hearing — but ending it would require more detention space.

Bush-Joseph said that individuals in immigration custody tend to face greater challenges with communication, obtaining counsel, interpretation, and understanding their rights.

“The nature of immigration detention in and of itself is that it’s harder for people to win relief in immigration court,” she said.

Border security

The bill provides roughly $46.5 billion to complete Trump’s border wall. It also sets aside $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities and $10 billion for border security initiatives more broadly.

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About $13.5 billion is put toward reimbursing states and local governments engaging in immigration and border-related enforcement.

Some critics have questioned the need for more border security funding, given that the number of people crossing the southern border has fallen to its lowest level in decades — with slightly over 6,000 apprehensions in June, according to preliminary figures released by the Department of Homeland Security.

But Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports restricting immigration, argued that its better to invest in border infrastructure now than wait until another surge in crossings.

” If we wait until 250,000 people arrive per month, it’s going to be too late,” he added, referring to the peak of monthly arrests hit under former President Joe Biden.

Immigration fees

Republicans also sought to make the immigration process more expensive with increased or new fees.

Among the biggest changes to the immigration provisions from the House to the Senate version is the reduction in the minimum fee required to apply for asylum: from $1,000 in the initial House version to $100 in the final bill. The adjustment came after the Senate parliamentarian determined that the higher fee did not meet the rules needed to qualify for a simple majority vote.

Arthur said adjudicating each application can be costly. ” It’s not unreasonable to expect them to pay at least $100 for their asylum application if only to cover a portion — and a very small portion of that — of the processing and adjudication fees,” he added, speaking about migrants seeking asylum to stay in the U.S.

But Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, argued that the new or increased fees will put an “unaffordable price tag on due process” for many immigrants. According to Altman, among the biggest increases is the fee to appeal an immigration judge’s decision: from the current $110 to $900.

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“Many of these fees are going to become barriers or obstacles to people making their way through the very basic requirements of the immigration court system,” she said.

Safety net programs

The initial House bill already stripped health coverage under Affordable Care Act marketplaces and Medicare for a range of lawfully present immigrants including refugees, asylees, and those with other humanitarian protections. It also restricted eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The final version maintains those cuts while extending similar limitations to federal funding for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to Shelby Gonzales, the vice president for immigration policy at the left-leaning think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

” The truth is that already a lot of people are barred from insurance just based off of not having the right kind of immigration status,” Gonzales said. “The changes that are made in this law go even further.”

Those remaining eligible for these public benefits are green card holders who have completed the five-year waiting period, certain Cubans and Haitians, and individuals residing in the U.S. under the Compacts of Free Association, which includes people from Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands.

Arthur from the Center for Immigration Studies argued that the U.S. already faces a challenge supporting a large number of low-income citizens — even without the additional strain on the country’s social safety nets.

” It is reasonable to expect those who come to this country to be able to provide for themselves,” he said. Arthur added that states who want to provide benefits should be able to fund them.

Gonzales said her most immediate concern is the limits to SNAP benefits, adding that she is worried whether food banks can meet potential increased demand in the future. “I don’t think that they have the capacity to help people in huge numbers that might be losing access to food immediately,” she said.

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The bill’s changes to the Child Tax Credit will also have an impact on immigrant families. Currently, only the child needs to have a Social Security number to qualify for the benefit. While the House initially proposed requiring both parents to have a Social Security number, the final version requires just one parent to do so.

” The child tax credit will be effectively cut off for kids with two undocumented parents,” said Tara Watson, director of the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at the Brookings Institution. “That’s a significant amount of money that assists with the wellbeing of citizen children and it will be gone.”

Immigration courts

Over $3 billion is allocated to the Justice Department for immigration-related activities. That includes the hiring of more immigration judges to address the growing case backlog, which was at nearly 4 million cases as of April, the latest data available.

Bush-Joseph from the Migration Policy Institute said the immigration court system is vastly underfunded compared to ICE and CBP, therefore the additional funding is promising. But she noted that the bill caps the number of judges to 800, which may fall short of what’s needed.

Bush-Joseph pointed to a 2023 analysis by the Congressional Research Service, which estimated that over 1,300 judges would be necessary to eliminate the backlog over the next several years.

“To my mind, immigration courts will likely continue to struggle to keep up because the backlog is so huge,” she added.