Sessions Lies About Unemployment Benefits Going To ‘Illegals’
Sessions Lies About Unemployment Benefits Going To ‘Illegals’
Yesterday, on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) proclaimed that Democrats are trying to prevent him from submitting an amendment that would prevent “illegals” from accessing jobless benefits. Sessions is upset that the Senate has denied his amendment to the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act requiring new unemployment benefit applicants to have their citizenship status checked using E-Verify — a controversial and error-ridden web-based employment verification system.
Sessions said, unequivocally, that undocumented immigrants are currently receiving unemployment benefits and are being “rewarded” for their “illegal behavior” by applying with their Social Security Numbers (SSN):
SESSIONS: What we want them to do is, like we’re asking businesses to do, is check with E-verify to see if the person who seeks unemployment insurance and compensation is actually lawfully in the country. That can be done, but they do not want to do that for reasons that baffle me and frankly have said that nothing is going to be voted on…
CAVUTO: So, are illegals presently getting jobless benefits, you can say that unequivocally?
SESSIONS: Yeah, uh, and they file using their Social Security Numbers and they get the benefits and if you check those numbers you would identify some of the people who shouldn’t be getting it. One of the more simple things you should do is simply not reward this illegal behavior.
Watch it:
To begin with, only US citizens individuals who are authorized to work are issued SSNs. Undocumented immigrants may possess stolen or fake SSNs, but if they try to apply for public benefits, the likelihood of them getting caught is very high. Phony SSNs immediately raise a red flag and stolen ones are easily identifiable in states that cross-match SSNs against the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) database and in all cases in which the theft has been reported.
Ultimately, most undocumented immigrants wouldn’t touch federal unemployment insurance with a ten foot pole. They’re in the US to work, not to collect public benefits. Chances are if they lose their job, they’ll just keep looking for another one before risking deportation and possible jail time. “It’s such a red herring — undocumented workers are too scared to apply for these kinds of benefits — they know the consequences of getting caught,” Jodi Conti of the National Employment Law Project tells Wonk Room.
Millions of US citizens are unemployed and they do qualify for and depend on unemployment benefits. However, if E-verify were instituted a 4% error rate could be devastating. In other words, for every million citizens that are unemployed, unemployment benefits for 40,000 American families could be denied or delayed due to errors in the SSA and Department of Homeland Security databases. The current number of total unemployed persons is currently at 15.1 million.
8 Responses to “Sessions Lies About Unemployment Benefits Going To ‘Illegals’”
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To begin with, only US citizens are issued SSNs
this is incorrect. LEGAL immigrants (green cards, other kinds of visas, H1B or what have you..) are also issued Social Security cards.
October 29th, 2009 at 7:45 pmWell, technically, Andrea’s statement is incorrect, but it does not change the point of the argument, since legal immigrants can collect unemployment benefits (assuming that they qualify).
October 29th, 2009 at 8:26 pmActually, legal immigrants have tax identifier numbers, so getting benefits means more hoops.
Illegal immigrants with tax identifier numbers can’t get benefits.
E-verify has a horrible error rate. It needs to be five-nines reliability before I’ll support it.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:28 pmhow is that right?fox 2 is brainwashing people right… how can u use a fake soc. no. when it is all digital? every1 gets that SSI letter in the mail anyway… what a bunch of liars…
October 29th, 2009 at 10:50 pmWhat a load of crap! What will the Repubs come up with next? They’ll stoop to any level, no matter how low, to keep up this stupid little kindergarten political game. All this because they got booted out of the White House? Is it any wonder? This B.S. has got to stop. What they don’t understand is that there really is no such thing as Repubs or Democrats when it comes to paying the rent, keeping the lights and heat on and providing for our families. We’re ALL AMERICANS IN NEED. It takes these senators only a few minutes to vote themeselves pay raises and bail out the scum bags that got us into this mess, but they stall this unemployment extension just for the fun of it. I hope you all remember this. The traitors who have done this to us do not deserve our votes. Illegal immigrants my ass…stop screwing around and PASS THIS BILL.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:28 amWhen will the Repulicans quit using this silly argument about illegals getting something for free. So what. I know many so called good Americans that scam the system daily. This whole arguement is to bolster their standing with the good ole’ boys who are for the most part to lazy to do the jobs these hard-working migrants are willing to do. In most cases, I’d put a migrant worker up against a good ole’ boy any day. The migrant will work them to death, they’d be so tired they couldn’t even stay up for Fauxnews when they got home.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:16 amUnemployment benefits are issued by state agencies, all states currently use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to verify that people applying for unemployment are eligible to receive it. Sessions is simply playing politics on something that isn’t even a problem to begin with…his amendment is a total waste of time and if enacted would be an unfunded mandate on states to roll-out E-verify, use it for unlawful purposes (it can only be used by employers within 3 days of hiring a worker) and in the meantime keep millions of US citizens waiting for benefits while the roll-out was completed, presumably over the course of several months or even a year. This amendment only hurts US workers who need unemployment benefits.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:29 pmLet’s tally up all the Incomes,Pensions,Campaign Contributions, Cost of Time Wasted and On and On of these Elected Officals and you tell if we should even worry weather or not there are individuals in this Country who are recieving benefits they are not entited to.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:51 pmI could go on but just one more point, If you have an individual who is using a SSN that was not obtained from the United States Government, these people use this document for employment, PAY TAXES on income, shop and pay sales tax, generally DO NOT FILE TAXES and DO NOT RECIEVE any monies back from the government. This represents 100’s of Millions of dollars per year and people think that our government wants to correct this so called problem…???