A coalition of Republican states are suing the Biden administration to prevent it from making some illegal immigrants eligible for Obamacare, just days before the 2024 presidential election.

A rule published in May would allow illegal immigrants who came as children and are protected from deportation via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to be eligible for healthcare through the Affordable Care Act.

Currently, all illegal immigrants are prohibited from accessing the program. The administration said it predicts that the rule, which would go into effect in November, would result in over 100,000 uninsured illegal immigrants being allowed to access insurance.

THESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE ELIGIBLE FOR OBAMACARE AFTER BIDEN RULE CHANGE 

Fifteen states, led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, claim that the regulation violates federal law that bars giving benefits to illegal immigrants and violates the Act itself.

The ACA, as passed by Congress, limits eligibility to citizens or nationals of the U.S. and those “lawfully present,” the complaint says.

“Illegal aliens shouldn’t get a free pass into our country. They shouldn’t receive taxpayer benefits when they arrive, and the Biden-Harris administration shouldn’t get a free pass to violate federal law. That’s why I am leading a multistate lawsuit to stop this illegal regulation from going into effect,” Kobach said in a statement.

The attorneys general of Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia have all signed on to the lawsuit.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

REPUBLICAN STATES ASK FEDERAL JUDGE TO END ‘UNLAWFUL’ DACA PROGRAM 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule would allow DACA recipients to apply for coverage through HealthCare.gov and state-based marketplaces by making what HHS calls “technical modifications” to the definition of “lawfully present” used to determine eligibility.

In a statement on the rule, President Biden renewed his calls for those he called “Dreamers” to be granted a pathway to citizenship along with others of millions of illegal immigrants.

HARRIS AND WALZ BOTH SUPPORT AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS 

“I’m proud of the contributions of Dreamers to our country and committed to providing Dreamers the support they need to succeed. That’s why I’ve previously directed the Department of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to ‘preserve and fortify’ DACA. And that’s why today we are taking this historic step to ensure that DACA recipients have the same access to health care through the Affordable Care Act as their neighbors,” he said.

“On Day One of my administration, I sent a comprehensive immigration reform plan to Congress to protect Dreamers and their families. Only Congress can provide Dreamers permanent status and a pathway to citizenship. Congress must act.”

Vice President Harris, in a separate statement, made a similar appeal.

“President Biden and I will continue to do everything in our power to protect DACA, but it is only a temporary solution. Congress must act to ensure Dreamers have the permanent protections they deserve,” she said.

Get the latest updates on the ongoing border crisis from the Fox News Digital immigration hub

Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whose military service has come under heavy scrutiny, “misspoke” in a 2018 video where he is heard talking about his handling of weapons “in war,” a Harris campaign spokesperson said Friday.

“Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country — in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way,” the Harris campaign spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News. 

“In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke. He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance who prioritize the gun lobby over our children,” the spokesperson added.

I SERVED WITH TIM WALZ AS A REPUBLICAN IN THE HOUSE. HE’LL BE A GOOD VICE PRESIDENT

The 2018 video clip shows Walz discussing gun control and referring to his own military background. 

“We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at,” Walz said in the clip, which was posted by Harris’ campaign on Tuesday.

Republicans, led by vice presidential candidate JD Vance, have criticized Walz’s military service. Walz served 24 years in the National Guard but never deployed to a war zone. In 2003, he deployed with his unit to Vicenza, Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, the name for the war in Afghanistan. 

Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said that Walz’ campaign is scrambling to “clean up his own mess.” 

“Why won’t Tim Walz address his lies himself? Why does he need to send out lowly spokespeople to clean up his own mess? Walz is a liar and fraud, and Kamala picked a running mate that shares her own vile values,” Cheung said.

Walz retired from the military in 2005, several months before the unit deployed to Iraq. 

Vance, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, has accused Walz of “stolen valor.”

“I wonder Tim Walz, when were you ever in war?” Vance said at an event in Michigan. “What was this weapon you carried into war? What bothers me about Tim Walz is this stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you’re not.”

“I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did,” he added. 

At a 2021 event hosted by a private Newport Beach high school, future Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said that after the sexual revolution of the 1960s, children suffered when their parents divorced, even when the marriages were unhappy or “maybe even violent.”

Vance, the author of the 2016 bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” told the crowd at the Orange County event that his grandparents did not divorce despite an “incredibly chaotic marriage in a lot of ways,” and said that some couples now see marriage as a “a basic contract, like any other business deal.”

“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace,” Vance said. “Which is this idea that like, well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally — you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them, and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term.”

He added: “And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I’m skeptical. But it really didn’t work out for the kids of those marriages. And I think that’s what all of us should be honest about. We’ve run this experiment in real time and what we have is a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that’s making our kids unhappy.”

Vance spoke at an event hosted by Pacifica Christian High School the year before he was elected to the U.S. Senate. David O’Neil, Pacifica’s head of school, confirmed to The Times that the school hosted Vance off campus as part of a community speaking series. He said the event was not a fundraiser.

“The evening was wonderful, and Mr. Vance was well received,” O’Neil said.

Vance’s comments were posted online by Vice News during Vance’s successful 2022 Senate campaign in Ohio.

California Democrats are trying to link Vance’s comments to Republican Scott Baugh, who is running for Congress in a hotly contested coastal Orange County district where Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) is not seeking reelection.

Baugh is on the board of trustees at Pacifica, which held the Vance event, his campaign confirmed.

Democratic state Sen. Dave Min, who is running against Baugh, described Vance’s comments as “radical” and “dangerous,” and called on Baugh to disavow them.

“Anyone who knows anything about domestic violence knows that what JD Vance is saying is horrific — it is ignorant, it is reprehensible,” Min said in an interview.

Min’s wife, a law professor at UC Irvine, directs a legal aid clinic that provides free representation to survivors of domestic violence.

“Domestic violence is never acceptable, in any circumstance,” Baugh said in a statement. “I stand by victims of domestic violence and, frankly, all crime.”

The Trump-Vance campaign did not respond to a request for comment, nor did press representatives for Vance’s Senate office.

When asked in 2022 whether he thought it would be better for couples in violent relationships to stay married for the sake of their children, Vance said through a spokesperson that he rejected the premise of the “bogus question.”

Vance said his reference to “one of the great tricks” of the sexual revolution was the contention that “domestic violence would somehow go down if progressives got what they want, when in fact modern society’s war on families has made our domestic violence situation much worse. Any fair person would recognize I was criticizing the progressive frame on this issue, not embracing it.”

The reported rate of domestic violence in the U.S. has declined over Vance’s lifetime.

In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance turns a raw lens on his family’s brushes with domestic violence, divorce and addiction. Vance’s mother was addicted to drugs, and Vance was raised by his grandparents, whose relationship, he said, was tumultuous and violent.

His grandfather, whom he called Papaw, was “a violent drunk,” Vance wrote in the book, and his grandmother, whom he called Mamaw, was a “violent nondrunk.” One night, he said, Mamaw threatened to kill Papaw if he came home drunk again. A week later, Papaw came home drunk and fell asleep on the couch.

“Mamaw, never one to tell a lie, calmly retrieved a gasoline canister from the garage, poured it all over her husband, lit a match, and dropped it on his chest,” Vance wrote. He said his grandfather burst into flames that were extinguished by his 11-year-old daughter.

Vance’s grandparents were separated for many years, but did not divorce, he wrote. They were “together until the end, till death do us part,” Vance said at the Orange County event. “That was a really important thing to my grandmother and my grandfather. That was clearly not true by the ‘70s or ‘80s.”

The event’s moderator asked Vance what cultural avenues or government policies he would support to “reinvigorate Americans’ belief in the institution of marriage.” Vance said that, among other ideas, he would look to Hungary for inspiration.

In an effort to buck that country’s declining birth rate, the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in 2019 began offering subsidized loans of up to $27,500 to newly married couples if the bride is younger than 41.

The loans are forgiven if couples have at least three children. Couples who divorce, move abroad or remain childless after five years must repay the loans, including interest.

“It’s really crazy,” Vance said of the policy. “The amount of marriage has skyrocketed, and the amount of stable, long-term marriages has skyrocketed, too.”

Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.