Shutdown blame game centers on health care for immigrants. What are the facts?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NC Republicans accuse Democrats of shutting government to fund care for undocumented immigrants.
- Democrats counter that Republicans divert attention from rising premiums and Medicaid cuts.
- Failure to extend ACA premium credits raised costs for tens of thousands of constituents.
Several Republicans representing North Carolina in Congress accused Democrats of shutting down the government in order to fund health care for immigrants in the country without authorization.
But North Carolina Democrats say that Republicans are trying to distract from cuts to health care for their own constituents.
Here are the facts.
Why did the government shut down?
Overnight Tuesday, the government shut down after Congress failed to pass a budget.
Republicans want to keep funding at its current levels through Nov. 21, allowing for continued negotiations. Punting the deadline further into the year has become common practice.
But Republicans didn’t negotiate their bill with Democrats and, while it passed the House, it failed when it reached the Senate.
The two parties are now at an impasse on the budget, with Democrats asking Republicans to meet three demands. That includes keeping alive a financial assistance program from the Affordable Care Act that lowers health insurance premiums and reversing cuts to Medicaid found in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
What does health care for immigrants have to do with it?
Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican from Southern Pines and chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee — he’s in charge of House Republicans’ messaging — posted on social media that Democrats shut down the government because of their demands for free health care for immigrants in the country without authorization.
“House Republicans did our job: we voted to fund the government and keep it open,” Hudson wrote on social media. “Democrats are voting to shut it down — demanding FREE healthcare for illegal aliens, paid for by hardworking taxpayers.”
Democrats have not sought free health care for immigrants in the country without legal permission. They have sought to restore access to federal health care programs for 1.4 million known immigrants with permission to be in the United States, according to an estimate by KFF and reporting by NBC News. Many of them are refugees or asylum seekers waiting on legal status, hold green cards or are recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Republicans stripped these groups from access to federal health care programs in July.
A Democratic bill would restore that access — but not for people who lack protected status — while also restoring $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts made as part of the same GOP megabill.
Rep. Deborah Ross of Raleigh, Valerie Foushee of Chapel Hill and Alma Adams of Charlotte addressed Republican allegations during a joint news conference Wednesday, less than 12 hours into the shutdown.
“That is simply a lie,” Ross said. “The only thing that anyone has a right to is emergency care in our country and they may be talking about that, but they are clearly lying about having Democrats say that ‘illegal immigrants’ should be able to get on the exchange, which they cannot do, or get access to Medicaid.”
Ross is right that federal law does not allow immigrants in the country without authorization to receive Medicaid, Medicare or coverage from the Affordable Care Act. The only time federal health care coverage is offered to an immigrant in the country without authorization is in the case of someone’s safety or life being at risk, which represents well under 0.5% of federal health care spending.
“That’s just a talking point that they have because they don’t want to deal with the reality of the fact that health care is something that everyone needs,” Adams said. “They’re literally trying to deliver away from the truth of not wanting to provide health care from families, and some of the families are in their districts, and that’s what’s so shameful about the whole thing.”
Ross interjected that some of the North Carolina Republicans making the accusations have more people in their districts receiving ACA tax credits and Medicaid than in the Democrats’ districts.
What happens now?
Adams said during the news conference that 88,000 of her constituents were sent letters Wednesday announcing that that their health insurance premiums were rising because Congress failed to extend the ACA tax credits. She said the increase is more than many can afford and that will lead to more people being uninsured and higher costs for those that remain covered.
“North Carolinians cannot afford for Congress not to act,” Adams said.
House members went home following their Sept. 19 vote on the budget bill, and spent the next week in their districts for a work period. They were supposed to return Sept. 29, but Johnson canceled both Monday and Tuesday’s votes. The House was already scheduled to be out the rest of the week in observance of Yom Kippur.
House Democrats have been in Washington with messaging that they’re ready to work.
The Senate is also observing the holiday and went home late Wednesday, after failing a third time to pass the House’s bill. The Senate plans to return Friday evening and again Saturday.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from Huntersville, addressed his chamber Wednesday afternoon to talk about the devastating impact the shutdown would have on Western North Carolina, as well as delaying Congress’ ability to provide more disaster relief funding.
Tillis said he agreed that Congress needs to find “a good place” for ACA credits.
“It’s not about canceling them,” Tillis said. “We can’t even get to that if we can’t agree to something as basic as, can we spend today what we did yesterday?”
This story was originally published October 1, 2025 at 6:59 PM with the headline "Shutdown blame game centers on health care for immigrants. What are the facts?."