Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), along with other Senate Democrats, is again lobbying President Joe Biden to take executive action in giving amnesty to some illegal aliens living in the United States. Cortez Masto’s renewed push for such legislation comes a month after one of her staffers was killed, allegedly by an illegal alien.
During a press conference alongside Sens. Alex Padilla (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ed Markey (D-MA), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Cortez Masto urged Biden to move forward with executive orders that would offer legal status to certain groups of illegal aliens.
Those offered amnesty would include those married to American citizens, those deemed “essential” to the U.S. economy, and those enrolled and eligible for former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“President Biden has the power to keep these families together,” Cortez Masto said, boasting about the amount of taxes illegal aliens in her state of Nevada pay each year.
“In 2018, undocumented immigrants in Nevada paid an estimated $241.6 million in federal taxes,” Cortez Masto said. “And they paid $121.3 million in state and local taxes. We have to do right by them.”
Cortez Masto’s renewed push for amnesty is significant, as her lobbying comes about a month after her state senior adviser, Kurt Englehart, 38 years old, was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Washoe County, Nevada, allegedly caused by 18-year-old illegal alien Elmer Rueda-Linares.
On April 6, police allege that Rueda-Linares was driving when he crashed into Englehart and then fled the scene. When police arrived, Rueda-Linares was nowhere to be found, while Englehart was found dead inside his vehicle.
Rueda-Linares was initially charged with felony hit-and-run, but that charge has been downgraded to a single charge of failing to stop at the scene of an accident.
The Reno Gazette-Journal reported that Reuda-Linares is an illegal alien who recently arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border near the Rio Grande City, Texas Port of Entry on March 12, 2021. On June 22, 2021, Reuda-Linares was released into the U.S. interior.
Cortez Masto honored Englehart on the Senate floor on Wednesday.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.