‘Nancy Pelosi basically lost me with that package when she has $1,200 checks for illegal immigrants…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced on Wednesday that the city will be providing a $5 million coronavirus relief fund to illegal immigrants, college students, and anyone else excluded from the federal government’s stimulus package.
The fund—sponsored in part by liberal billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations—will give illegal immigrants, dependent adults and residents who recently left prison $1,000 per household, Lightfoot said in a statement on Wednesday.
“This fund serves as a critical resource for the thousands of Chicagoans who so sorely need support and relief from the impact of COVID-19, but are unable to receive it through the federal government’s own stimulus channels,” Lightfoot said.
CHICAGO RESILIENCY FUND: Mayor Lightfoot joins the Resurrection Project to announce a $5 million cash assistance program to support the more than 300,000 Chicago residents who were excluded from #COVID19 federal stimulus aid. https://t.co/qcyEF6wXpT
— Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) June 10, 2020
Illegal immigrants were not included in Congress’s stimulus package because Republicans wanted to make sure that American workers came first, said Chris Chmielenski, deputy director of Numbers USA.
“With one of the worst jobless reports in quite a few years, the primary focus right now should be on American workers and lawful immigrants,” Chmielenski told CNN back in March.
And, in order to qualify, beneficiaries needed to provide Social Security numbers, which illegal immigrants do not have because they are not citizens.
Congressional Democrats tried to squeeze funding for illegal immigrants into Congress’s stimulus package, but the White House made it clear that that would be a non-starter.
“Nancy Pelosi basically lost me with that package when she has $1,200 checks for illegal immigrants,” White House economic adviser Peter Navarro told ABC News at the time, adding it “just goes downhill from there.”
