Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said in a statement Monday that it is “outrageous” that states continue to hand illegal immigrants cash payments while millions of Americans are unemployed; he said he will introduce legislation to address this concern.
Daines announced he will soon introduce legislation to stop federal taxpayer dollars from going to states that make direct or indirect payments to illegal immigrants. Daines announced the legislation after news reports found that New York created a $2.1 billion fund to provide illegal immigrants payments, which could then be covered by the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion coronavirus package.
Daines said in a statement Monday that lawmakers should prioritize Americans over illegal aliens. He said:
It’s outrageous that while millions of American workers are still hurting, and in the midst of a border crisis created by President [Joe] Biden, that we have states handing out taxpayer dollars to illegal immigrants. We should not be rewarding Biden’s open border policies by creating incentives for people to cross our border illegally. That’s why I’m introducing a bill to stop taxpayer dollars from going to any state that is providing payments to illegal immigrants. Americans should always come first.
The legislation would prevent stimulus payments from the American Rescue Plan from going to any state that provides cash payments to illegal aliens and includes provisions allowing the federal government to recoup the payments if a state were to provide illegal aliens any monetary payment.
Reps. Jason Smith (R-MO) and James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter to the Joe Biden administration calling for an investigation into New York over distributing coronavirus funds to illegal immigrants. They wrote:
Unfortunately, the $1.9 trillion spending bill included language prohibiting states from using these funds to offset tax relief they might wish to provide their citizens. However, despite concerns raised by Congressional Republicans, it did not explicitly limit the potential use of American taxpayer dollars to prioritize illegal immigrants over American families.
“It now appears that New York is using its state budget, recently bolstered with billions in federal dollars, to funnel money to illegal immigrants,” they wrote.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.