by Jason Hopkins
A former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claims House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s coronavirus relief package exploits the pandemic to push a progressive agenda.
“Nancy Pelosi and her party, they are taking advantage of this crisis to push a radical agenda. Look, she wants to use our taxpayer’s money to reward illegal behavior,” said Tom Homan on Fox News Thursday. Homan led ICE early on in the Trump administration.
Pelosi introduced the HEROES Act on Tuesday, a $3 trillion spending bill that includes so many progressive measures, and Republican leaders have deemed it dead-on-arrival in the Senate. Particularly on immigration issues, the legislation would make many illegal aliens eligible for $1,200 relief checks, along with a number of anti-enforcement measures.
“She wants to use U.S. citizens’ taxpayer money to pay illegal aliens … They committed a crime and entered this country illegally, they are in violation of law for working in this country illegally,” Homan said.
House Democrats’ HEROES Act, if passed into law, would allow those who use Taxpayer Identification Numbers — which are frequently used by illegal aliens who don’t have Social Security numbers — to be eligible for stimulus funds. The bill also forbids federal grant money from being withheld from sanctuary cities, and it calls on ICE to release detainees who do not pose a “threat to public safety or national security.”
The legislation includes a section that provides “temporary protections for essential critical infrastructure workers,” giving protections to illegal aliens employed in jobs that are declared “essential.” If the legislation were to pass, these illegal aliens would enjoy a period of deferred action on repatriation, and be authorized to work if they meet a certain requirements.
Homan said that Pelosi had argued for years that Trump is not above the law, but she thinks illegal aliens are above the law.
“Here’s the Speaker of the House for three years [saying] the president is not above the law, the president is not above the law, but apparently in her eyes, illegal aliens are above the law,” he said.
“I don’t know what the skies are in her world but she lost her mind on this stimulus package,” Homan added.
Pelosi’s bill, which House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said was a “liberal wishlist that has no chance of becoming law,” is not anticipated to make it past the Republican-controlled Senate.
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Jason Hopkins is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Tom Homan” by Fox News.
