November 21, 2021
The more we learn about President Biden’s massive welfare expansion bill, which passed in the House on Friday morning, the more obvious it becomes that Democrats have no regard for American taxpayers.
Not only does the inaptly named Build Back Better act make millions more Americans dependent on welfare, but the bill also makes it possible for illegal immigrants to receive billions of dollars in cash welfare payments. As reported by Fox News, on page 1,647 of the 2,135-page bill is an alteration to the child tax credit program, which will lead to cash windfalls for immigrants living in the United States illegally.
The change removes the social security number requirement to obtain payments through the child tax credit program. Currently, illegal immigrants can receive benefits for their US-born children. As if that was not insane enough, if the Build Back Better Act becomes law, illegal immigrants whose children are illegally in the country will also be entitled to receive cash payments based on their number of children.
According to Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, “roughly 600,000 unaccompanied minors and persons in family units stopped at the border in FY2021 and released” into the US will be eligible to receive these monthly payments.
Reminder- in the $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” passed in March, Biden significantly increased the child tax credit by $1,000 per child. Families are now eligible to receive up to $3,600 per child annually. Democrats want to make these enhanced payments permanent.
Camarota estimates that removing the social security requirement will enable illegal immigrant families to receive $2.3 billion in cash payments. Illegal immigrants with American children will receive $8.2 billion. Therefore, under the child tax credit program, in total, if the BBB act passes, American taxpayers will pay illegal immigrants $10.2 billion for no other reason other than they are living in the US with children.
Thanks to Biden’s dismantling of every successful Trump-era immigration policy, in the past year 1.7 million migrants have illegally breached the US border- the highest number of illegal crossings in recorded US history. This number does not even include the “got aways” -migrants who evaded capture at the border- which is estimated to be more than 300,000.
Undoubtedly migrants have decided to come to the US now because of the Biden administration’s open border policy.
In Biden’s first weeks in office Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that unaccompanied children and family units illegally entering the US will not be deported.
In February, ICE Director Tae Johnson declared that ICE agents need to seek supervisory approval to justify their decision before detaining immigrants. Under this directive, ICE agents were also instructed to no longer deport illegal immigrants for crimes such as driving under the influence, assault, money laundering, property crimes, fraud, tax crimes, or solicitation.
In September, DHS issued a memo declaring that being in the US illegally is not grounds for deportation. During recent questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee, ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Mayorkas if the September memo also applied to “..the million illegal immigrants who have been given a final order of removal by an immigration judge.” Mayorkas replied: “It certainly does.”
The BBB act also has a provision that would give 6.5 illegal immigrants a 10-year right to work in the United States.
To recap – illegally entering the US is not grounds for deportation, nor are convictions for certain crimes, and Democrats want to pay immigrants billions of American taxpayer dollars simply because they are living in the US illegally with children.
Further, calling the monthly payments a “tax credit” is a misnomer. The BBB act eliminates all work requirements. Therefore parents would receive up to $3,600 annually per child even if unemployed and owed zero income tax. In other words Biden transformed the child tax credit program into a welfare program.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal last month, the Biden administration is also proposing to award illegal immigrant families separated at the border under the Trump administration up to $450,000 per person. This settlement could amount to more than a million per family for immigrants who knowingly broke our nation’s immigration laws.
In a lengthy filibuster of the Build Back Better Act, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy summed up the spending in the bill:
“Never in American history has so much been spent at one time. Never in American history will so many taxes be raised and so much borrowing to be needed for all this reckless spending.”
And we can add, never in American history have those in power encouraged massive illegal migration on the present scale while awarding illegal immigrants with American taxpayer dollars simply because they broke US law.
