Federal COVID funds were used in Washington state to give $1,000 checks to illegal immigrants who were not qualified for federal economic impact payments during the pandemic because of their immigration status.
The Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) report reveals the expenditures that were distributed by the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF). The SLFRF was set up by the American Rescue Plan Act to help state and local governments respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. All together, that program gave $4.4 billion to Washington state.
The group’s study, which calls for a smaller federal government, talked about how $340 million was given to a program that sent $1,000 checks to people in the state who were there illegally.
The funds were passed by the legislature of Washington state in April 2021 and gave “another round of funding for undocumented Washingtonians,” a report on the program’s effects said.
EPIC summarized the investigation’s findings:
A few weeks ago, EPIC uncovered the Bidenomics Slush Fund and the Treasury Department’s misappropriation of $350 billion worth of taxpayer dollars.
The Bidenomics Slush Fund comes from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which provided $350 billion for a new, temporary program to be administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury called the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF). The SLFRF was intended to provide money to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments “to support their response to and recovery from the COVID-19 public health emergency.”
The pandemic has long ended, but even before it did, SLFRF dollars were being used for wasteful projects, including golf courses, swimming pools, tennis courts, rodeos and even a circus.
Earlier today, EPIC released new analysis of the latest SLFRF data, finding that $120 billion of SLFRF money is still unobligated, and thus could be clawed back by Congress. This is particularly salient for the SLFRF funds being used for so-called “revenue replacement” projects that are extremely broad in scope and entirely unrelated to pandemic response and recovery.
“The $340 million project is categorized as a ‘cash transfer’ expenditure under the SLFRF, approved for the State of Washington. This means the Biden Administration directly subsidized ‘undocumented’ immigration under the guise of COVID-19 pandemic relief,” the EPIC report said.
The Center for Immigration Studies in 2021 cited a study that correctly predicted that illegal immigrants will receive “billions” in Covid relief checks.
Millions of illegal immigrants do have Social Security numbers (SSNs), and they will receive billions of dollars in stimulus money. But leave the money aside for now and consider the more basic problem: The U.S. government has chosen to issue SSNs to millions of people who are not even supposed to be in the country. It’s a clear indication that America is simply not serious about enforcing its immigration laws.
To be clear, the illegal immigrants given work authorization are not guest workers; they are not green-card holders (permanent immigrants); they are not tourists. They are illegal aliens who, under the current system, are still given work authorization and Social Security numbers, year after year after year. This allows them to receive cash payments such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the Additional Child Tax Credit, and COVID-19 relief checks. If none of this makes sense to you, then you are at least beginning to understand how our immigration system works.
Washington state advertised access to taxpayer Covid funds in at least 45 languages, which literally run the gambit from A to Z.
“All written, visual, physical, and virtual communications prepared were produced in at least 5 core languages (English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, and Tagalog), but there were
basic outreach materials available in at least 45 languages, including: Aku, Amharic, Arabic, Bemba, Chuukese, Dari, English, Farsi, Fijian, French, Fula, Garifuna, Hindi, Hmong, Jola, K’iche’, Karen, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Lingala, Malay, Mam, Mandarin, Mandinka, Manjako, Mixteco, Nahuatal, Pashto, Portuguese, Punjabi, Q’anjob’al, Russian, Sarahulle, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Thai, Tongan, Triqui, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Wollof, Zapoteco,” the report said.
“In the end, the ‘22–’23 round of the Immigrant Relief Fund granted payments of $3075 to over 100,000 applicants,” the report concluded.
“All in all, the perspective that community comes first was evident and made the Washington COVID-19 Immigrant Relief Fund a major success,” the report’s authors boasted.
U.S. taxpayers might be to differ.
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