Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for the vast majority of state and federal benifits and are only eligible for those that are considered important to public health and safety. In fact, many legal immigrants are also ineligible for most federal benifits. As a result, health care spending for immigrants is approximately half of citizens.

Why should deserving Americans lose their benefits because of the incompetence of our border enforcement agencies? I don't agree.

Great idea!

The illegal immigration problem is complex and won't be solved unless society (via its agent the government) implements and enforces several changes. One of these (the others to be addressed in related comments) is to lower welfare assistance. One must start by acknowledging that society cannot survive by paying a material portion of the population to remain idle (as evidenced by the experience of the Roman Empire). In simple terms, wage earners and taxpayers must be privileged with a higher quality of life than the able idle. As a result of current policies, these able idle are removed from the lower skilled labor pool, resulting in the vacuum being filled by illegal labor. The rise in the use of illegal labor evidences this reality in that one can justifiably presume that (all other things equal) employers would prefer legal labor over illegal labor (due to penalties, etc.). Nevertheless, this factor alone (assuming for the moment that the government would have the political will to make this change) would not suffice to solve the problem as other changes must be made (eg lowering the minimum wage and societal expectations) in order to force domestic able labor to fill those roles.