Unanimous Consent Request--S. 842
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to propound a unanimous consent request, but before I do so, I want to make some brief remarks.
As my colleagues know and as several fact checkers have confirmed over the past week, the Democrats' partisan reconciliation bill that became law last week will provide many illegal aliens with $1,400 rebate checks paid for by the American taxpayer. By several estimates, millions of illegal immigrants will get these rebates.
I offered an amendment 2 weeks ago to the Democrats' bill to close this loophole. During debate on my amendment, one Democratic Senator spoke against my amendment, saying that no illegal aliens have Social Security numbers, and therefore the premise of my amendment and my speech was, he said, ``not true.'' In fact, here are the Senator's full remarks from the floor 2 weeks ago:
Mr. President, the statement from the Senator from Texas is just plain false. Let me be clear. Undocumented immigrants do not have Social Security numbers, and they do not qualify for stimulus relief checks, period.
And just in case you didn't notice, they didn't qualify in December when 92 of us voted for that measure, and they don't qualify under the American Rescue Plan. Nothing has changed.
And for you to stand up there and say the opposite is just to rile people up over something that is not true.
It is not true, and we know what is going on [here]. They want to be able to give speeches and say the checks go to undocumented people. In the circumstance where there is a parent receiving--
At that point, the Senator's time expired.
Following that debate, the Senator in question took to Twitter to double down. So it was not, after an all-night of no sleep, a moment of erroneous comment, but, rather, on Twitter that same Senator tweeted:
Sen. Cruz's claim is only meant to rile people up over something that's not true. You cannot receive a stimulus check without a Social Security #. That's a fact. Instead of discriminating against mixed-status families, let's prioritize getting more relief to those families.
A second tweet from the same Senator:
We simply cannot stand by and allow outright falsehoods to be propagated on the Senate floor. It's time for GOP Senators like Ted Cruz to stop trying to rile people up over misinformation.
Well, as John Adams famously said, facts are stubborn things, and it turns out the comments from the Democratic Senator were categorically false and my comments that this bill would send checks to millions of illegal aliens were categorically true.
Numerous fact checkers began looking at the claims. Newsweek initially fact-checked it, and, as is the wont with a fair number of media fact checkers, took the word of the Democrats for it, concluded my statement was mostly false.
Following that, my staff got on the phone with Newsweek and presented them with incontrovertible facts--incontrovertible facts that of the roughly 12 million estimated illegal aliens who are here, roughly 60 percent of them are visa overstays, people who came legally and then overstayed their visa, and a significant percentage of visa overstays have Social Security numbers and will receive checks.
Indeed, that is why my amendment was scored at saving the Federal Government over $600 million, because of the checks that would not go to illegal immigrants if my amendment had been passed.
When Newsweek heard these facts, they did something really quite impressive, admirable. They admitted they were wrong. They revised their fact check, and they changed their fact check from mostly false to true. True, period. No caveats. True. I want to commend Newsweek for demonstrating journalistic integrity. Correcting that fact-check, I am sure, was not an easy decision for them to make, but it was the right decision for them to make.
So, Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that we enter this fact-check into the Record.
8, 2021] Fact Check: Will Millions of Illegal Immigrants Get Stimulus Checks, as Ted Cruz Says? (By Graham McNally)
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) proposed an amendment to the American Rescue Plan that would bar illegal immigrants from access to the $1,400 stimulus checks.
His amendment was voted down after Senator Dick Durbin (D- Ill.) criticized Cruz for trying to ``rile people up over something that is not true.'' The Claim
Cruz claimed on Twitter that illegal immigrants would be eligible for the $1,400 stimulus checks included in the American Rescue Plan.
On March 6, Cruz tweeted, ``When the checks go out, millions of illegal immigrants WILL GET $1400 checks.''
He wrote that many people considered illegal immigrants are those who have overstayed their visas, and therefore have Social Security numbers.
Cruz argued that the possession of Social Security numbers will allow unlawfully present individuals to obtain the stimulus money. The facts
Anyone who pays taxes in the United States as a resident is eligible for a stimulus payment under the American Rescue Plan. That includes non-citizens.
For example, a citizen of Canada who is living and working full time in the U.S. would have a Social Security number and would be eligible for a stimulus payment.
The United States Department of Homeland Security website describes unauthorized immigrants as foreign-born non- citizens who live in the United States without legal residence. Individuals who overstay their visas but pay tax in the United States using a Social Security number can be eligible for stimulus payments. The most recent available data for the number of visa overstays in the United States is from 2019, released by the Department of Homeland Security. It said that 1.21 percent of visas in that year were overstayed, or 676,422 overstays. In 2019, student visas (1.52 percent) had a higher overstay rate than those from Canada and Mexico (.75 percent, 1.27 percent, respectively).
Illegal immigrants would not be eligible to receive a check if they do not have a Social Security number.
Immigrants who overstay their visas no longer are lawfully in the country but retain their Social Security numbers and therefore are eligible to receive a check.
``Technically, if they have overstayed their visa, they are here illegally,'' a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Newsweek. ``If a visitor has not been granted an extension of status by USCIS [United States Citizenship and Immigration Services], then they are considered to be overstays and subject to deportable status under 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.''
People who qualify as legal residents include those who have passed the green card test (permanent legal residents) or those who pass the substantial presence test. That test requires taxpayers to be physically present in the United States for 31 days of the current year and 183 days for the past three years.
Anyone who has a green card is considered a legal permanent resident, and would be eligible for the stimulus payment. The Ruling
True.
Cruz's claim that millions of illegal immigrants would receive stimulus payments is true, given the amount of people who have overstayed their visas over the years. Once they overstay, they technically are considered ``illegal.''
Correction, March 9, 4:00 pm EST: The ruling on this story has been corrected to true. A statement from Customs and Border Patrol has been added.
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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, it is clear and indisputable that a significant number of illegal immigrants will receive checks and are receiving checks right now. All 100 Members of this body were misinformed by the Democratic Senator that no illegal aliens would receive fact checks--would receive, rather, stimulus checks. So I want to give my colleagues a chance to adopt the amendment now, with the correct information, with the true information, with the factual information.
I would note as well, in these deeply partisan times, it is easy for Republicans to throw insults at Democrats; it is easy for Democrats to throw insults at Republicans. Far too much of that occurs.
The Senator from Illinois, who is a friend whom I served with for 9 years, is a talented Senator. I am not here suggesting that when he stood up and spoke on the Senate floor and said things that were absolutely false, that he did so knowingly and maliciously. I would certainly give the Senator from Illinois the benefit of the doubt that he was in error rather than deliberately misstating facts, but the facts are now clear.
We have a rule in this body, rule XIX, to reprimand any Senator who imputes the character or integrity of another Senator. I am not going to seek refuge in that rule, although I think there is an argument that I could. But I will say this, that once the facts have been made clear, I hope my friend from Illinois will show the same principle Newsweek showed--to apologize, to say he was wrong and he is sorry for calling me a liar on the Senate floor and then going to Twitter to do so twice. That would be the right thing to do, to acknowledge an error when it occurred. The Senator from Illinois' statement that no illegal immigrants will receive checks under this bill is categorically false.
For that reason, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of S. 842, introduced earlier today. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President.
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Mr. CRUZ. I would note several things. No. 1, the Senator from Illinois said he didn't know if the number of illegal immigrants getting checks from the Democrats' stimulus bill was in the tens or the hundreds or the thousands. With all due respect, he does know that. It is not in the tens. It is not in the hundreds. It is not in the thousands. JCT, the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is a nonpartisan organization that reports to this Senate and this Congress, scored my amendment as roughly 482,000 illegal immigrants are getting checks under the Democrats' proposal. Two outside organizations have scored it as millions of illegal immigrants.
I would note what Newsweek said, when they corrected their fact- check, and I am going to read a quote:
The Ruling. True. Cruz's claim that millions of illegal immigrants would receive stimulus payments is true, given the amount of people who have overstayed their visas over the years. Once they overstay, they technically are considered ``illegal.''
Nowhere in the Senator from Illinois' remarks was a word of apology for falsely calling me a liar on the floor of this Senate and on Twitter. That is unfortunate.
What the Senator said right now is also incorrect. The Senator from Illinois said this amendment would halt the payments that are going out. This amendment doesn't do anything of the sort. This amendment restricts sending payments to people who are here illegally. When the Senator from Illinois said he would love to do that, with all due respect, that doesn't withstand even the slightest bit of scrutiny because if he would love to do that, all he had to do was not object, and the American citizens, the people who are here legally, would all get their $1,400 checks, would get them on the exact same timeframe, but those here illegally would not.
Today's Democratic Party supports sending checks to millions of illegal immigrants. They have justified it, as the Senator from Illinois did, by falsely claiming none of them are getting checks. Those are not the facts, as the Newsweek fact-check makes clear.
I would note that a bill that Democratic Senators are trying to push, denominated H.R. 1, what many are calling the corrupt politicians act, would compound that by allowing millions of illegal immigrants to be registered to vote and, no doubt, to cast votes.
This is a political decision that is far outside the mainstream. It is unfortunate, but sadly it reflects where today's Democratic Party is.
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