Journalists are accusing Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) of calling undocumented immigrants “non-people,” when he literally meant fictional people who do not exist that are fraudulently claimed for tax credits.

In order to pay for plans to combat coronavirus, Paul proposed extending a law that ensures that people cannot claim tax credits for children who do not have a social security number or make fraudulent claims for children who do not exist.

“Taxpayer money should not go to non-people,” he said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “It says you have to have a Social Security number.”

Paul’s office told Breitbart News that he was discussing the claims of fictional individuals — which individuals have done in past tax filings.

Paul’s Deputy Chief of Staff Sergio Gor said in a statement:

When the senator spoke of ‘non-people,’ he was referring to literally fraudulent practices where individuals claim children that don’t exist or children they don’t have, but their tax credits increase due to this fraudulent practice… This has nothing to do with undocumented immigrants.

However, some journalists claimed that Paul called undocumented immigrants “non-people”:

Over the years, various cases of fraud have been uncovered, including in North Carolina in 2020 where authorities uncovered more than 1,000 tax returns linked to eight addresses with refunds worth more than $5 million. Multiple individuals were arrested and charged with coordinating hundreds of false returns.

Similarly, a separate scam was traced, leading to 398 returns to two apartments, totaling more than $1.9 million in additional child tax credits, with no guarantee that the children existed or lived in the U.S.

Current law requires a Social Security number to be included when claiming a Child Tax Credit, but it is set to expire in 2026. Paul’s proposal would have extended the provision to ensuring the IRS is not giving money away to those ineligible for the provision.

The law’s goal was to address cases where undocumented immigrants claimed credits for ineligible children, including some who did not reside in the U.S., or cases where individuals claimed credits for non-existent children.

“Cases on both fronts came to a halt when the IRS did adopt the Social Security requirement, which Senator Paul sought to extend,” Gor said.

Paul’s proposal also included ending the Afghanistan War, which costs the U.S. about $50 billion a year to sustain.

 

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