Rand Paul: Immigrants are 'non-people' who don't deserve federal aid

From a floor speech on giving people federal tax credits in response to the coronavirus pandemic, during the March 18 session of the U.S. Senate:

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): My amendment says that if you want to apply for money from the government through the child tax credit program — this is money that the government gives to people — that you have to be a legitimate person, you have to have a Social Security number.

 

We’ve been talking about this reform for a decade now and we never seem to be able to get it passed. It has nothing to do with not liking immigrants, it has to do with saying taxpayer money shouldn’t go to non-people.

 

You should have to be a person to get taxpayer money.

 

It just says you have to have a Social Security number. People estimate this would save $26 billion dollars. That goes a long way towards paying for this bill.

According to the Daily Beast, Paul was proposing on Wednesday to block federal child tax credits in response to the COVID-19 outbreak for those without a Social Security number, claiming it could save the U.S. government tens of billions of dollars.

The Trump administration has floated the idea of a stimulus to help relieve Americans impacted by the outbreak.

Paul’s office tried to explain those comments later on Wednesday, telling the Daily Beast in a statement that when he “spoke of ‘non-people’ he was referring to literally fraudulent practices where individuals claim children that don’t exist or children they don’t have, but their tax credits increase due to this fraudulent practice…”

“This has nothing to do with undocumented immigrants,” they claimed.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.