A plan circulated by President Joe Biden to provide border crossers with $450,000 payouts would “encourage more illegal immigration” to the United States, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans say.
The Biden administration is weighing whether to provide border crossers — who were subjected to President Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” policy — with $450,000 each as part of a payout in lawsuits filed. The plan could cost American taxpayers about $1 billion, turning some border crossers into millionaires seemingly overnight.
In a letter to Biden, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Kennedy (R-LA), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Ted Cruz (R-TX), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) rebuked the proposal as a reward to illegal aliens and the Mexican drug cartels that smuggle them across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“At a time when respect for our country’s immigration laws is at an all-time low, our federal government is now seeking to financially reward aliens who broke our laws,” the Senators write:
These illegal immigrants disregarded our immigration processes, cut in front of those seeking to legally enter our nation, and put children at risk of great personal injury or death by placing them in the hands of abusive smugglers. Not only would these settlements be breathtakingly unjust and unwise, but they reinforce the conditions that make it easy for the cartels to recruit more people to undertake the treacherous journey to our southwest border, and serve only to encourage more illegal immigration. [Emphasis added]
…
Americans are a kind and generous people who welcome a diverse array of immigrants from around the world. Our nation has been made stronger by the generations of legal immigrants that have contributed to our country and achieved the American Dream. But rewarding illegal immigration with financial payments runs counter to our laws and would only serve to encourage more lawlessness at our border. [Emphasis added]
Most significantly, the $450,000 payouts to border crossers would leave less social spending to help working and middle class Americans. Analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), for instance, calculated that the single payout for a border crosser under the proposal could feed 42 American families for an entire year.
Likewise, the total cost of the payouts could provide homes to nearly 80,000 homeless Americans for a year or could forgive student loan debt for more than 27,000 American college students and graduates who are struggling to move up the economic ladder.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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