Republican Senator Ted Cruz has said a lot of things recently we can justifiably be skeptical about, starting with his reasons for hopping on a plane to Cancun while the state of Texas was enduring a once-in-a-lifetime weather crisis. He was caught lying about that. Now, it turns out he wasn’t being completely honest when he claimed illegal immigrants would be getting $1400 checks under President Biden’s relief bill.
Cruz made the claim during the debate on the Senate floor of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Here’s exactly what he said:
“The Democrats in this Chamber just voted to send $1,400 stimulus checks to murderers, to rapists, and child molesters incarcerated in prison. This amendment, just like the one we just voted on that Senator Cassidy and I introduced, this amendment before us today provides that the stimulus check should not go to illegal aliens in this country.”
Cruz’s statement drew the immediate ire of Durbin, the Senate Majority Whip, who called his statements false.
Cruz responded on twitter, stating he was correct but at the same time he tried clean up his comments on the Senate floor.
A fact-check by CNN showed Cruz was wrong to claim all illegal immigrants would be getting checks. Durbin was incorrect, too, because he stated no illegal immigrants would get checks, “period.” The fact is, some undocumented workers who have a Social Security number could get stimulus checks. Why? Because Biden’s bill does not make a difference between the SSNs undocumented workers use on tax forms and the numbers citizens/legal residents use. In case you’re wondering, the two stimulus rounds under the Trump Administration did not make a differentiation between the two, either.
Of course, Cruz’s very vocal objections to payments going to prisoners and illegal immigrants were nowhere to be found during those two stimulus bill discussions. Anyone care to guess why?
