Savannah Hulsey Pointer, FISM News
Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that would block the government from making illegal immigrant families into millionaires.
Just days after President Joe Biden called reports that the Department of Justice planned to pay hundreds of millions to migrants separated at the border “garbage,” the commander in chief appears to have doubled down on his reversal on compensation, saying individuals separated from their family at the border “deserve” compensation.
In a press conference on Saturday, Biden got fiery when asked about his comments of calling the payments “garbage,” yelling at the reporter who asked the question and pointing the finger at former President Donald Trump. “If in fact because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child, you lost your child, its gone, you deserves some kind of compensation.” Biden contested.
WATCH: Biden bizarrely yells at a reporter when confronted about offering cash payments to illegal immigrants for breaking the law. pic.twitter.com/k0CBCgvnmQ
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 6, 2021
The New York Times reports that there were roughly 5,500 children who were separated from their parents at the border whose families would be eligible for payments. According to Just the News the plan to compensate these individuals at roughly $450,000 per person would equate to payments that could total almost $1 million per family and create $1 billion in overall costs to the American people.
This response came after Biden’s Wednesday assertion that the massive sum to be paid to families was not true and Thursday’s response from a White House spokesperson who told reporters that the president was “perfectly comfortable” with American taxpayers funding cash payments to those who entered the country illegally.
At Saturday’s press conference, the president still didn’t confirm a total for what the Department of Justice would be offering to illegal immigrants who were apprehended and put into different camps than family members under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance policy.”
Republican lawmakers, however, are bracing for the worst.
According to the Just The News report, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) has introduced legislation that is supported by more than two dozen Senate Republicans and would amend the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 that would block payments to illegal immigrants.
The same content was introduced in a stand-alone bill in the House of Representatives. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif) introduced the Illegal Immigration Payoff Prohibition Act to stop the U.S. Attorney General from settling with illegal immigrants who violated federal immigration laws:
“Who says crime doesn’t pay? Under Biden it apparently pays very well indeed,” McClintock remarked while introducing the bill. “Law-abiding, hardworking Americans have seen their purchasing power decimated by Biden’s economic policies while he has surrendered our southern border. Paying illegal immigrants $450,000 apiece as an apology for Trump’s decision to enforce our immigration law adds insult to injury. Congress has the power of the purse, and that’s why we must act today to stop this outrageous plan in its tracks.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) cosponsored the bill, as did Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and 135 other congressional members threw their support behind the measure.
“With all the challenges Americans are facing every day — including an unprecedented border crisis — providing $450,000 per person settlement payments to illegal immigrants is pure insanity,” McCarthy said in the press release. “This is not only an insult to the American people, but also will worsen the border crisis and lead to a business boom for drug cartels and human traffickers, who are already exploiting Democrats’ disastrous border policies.”
Jordan noted that the bill illustrates that Democrats are looking out for illegal immigrants more than the American people:
Democrats lock down the economy, pay people not to work, raise your taxes, and now want to give illegal immigrants $450,000 checks paid for by American taxpayers. Our bill would make sure the Attorney General can’t unilaterally make that happen.