Republicans: New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy Used COVID-19 Funds Intended for Americans to Pay Illegal Aliens

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) used federal Chinese coronavirus funding, intended for American taxpayers, to pay stimulus checks to illegal aliens, state Republicans say.

As Breitbart News reported last year, Murphy provided the state’s nearly half a million illegal aliens with rounds of stimulus checks to the sum of tens of millions of dollars — paid for by American taxpayers — that was meant as coronavirus relief for Americans.

The state’s Office of Legislative Services (OLS) has accused Murphy of improperly allocating $10 million to fund stimulus checks for illegal aliens and now, state Republicans say the governor diverted millions to pay about 100,000 illegal aliens.

North-NewJersey reports:

GOP lawmakers have charged that Murphy, along with key party allies on the State Senate and Assembly budget committees, devised a plan to divert federal COVID funds intended for New Jersey taxpayers in support of approximately 100,000 illegal immigrants. [Emphasis added]

Republicans have raised questions about the program as under federal law, illegal immigrants who reside within the United States were not entitled to federal COVID stimulus checks or unemployment benefits in 2020 and again in 2021. [Emphasis added]

…

“The Democrats who control the Legislature know that Gov. Murphy’s program giving big cash payments to illegal immigrants is so unpopular with most New Jerseyans that they were afraid to fund it directly in the state budget,” said State Sen. Jim Holzapfel (R-10). “Instead, they created a slush fund that Gov. Murphy controls that appears to have been designed specifically to continue making these ridiculous payments.” [Emphasis added]

Stimulus checks for illegal aliens in the midst of the Chinese coronavirus crisis became a model for blue states after former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) spent $2.1 billion of taxpayer money for nearly 300,000 illegal aliens in the form of one-time $15,600 payments.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.