Whaaat???: Illegal Immigration Edition

Mary Katharine Ham wrote on Hugh Hewitt Seriously, if you could see me now, I'm very Yosemite Sam. Very stampy and tantrumy and incoherent. Just a few minutes ago, on the floor of the United States Senate, senators debated an amendment to the McCain immigration bill. This is not, by itself, profanity-inducing. But here's the substance of the debate-- Should ILLEGAL immigrants, once made legal by the McCain legislation, be entitled to receive the Social Security benefits they have paid into the system while ILLEGALLY using FRAUDULENT Social Security numbers STOLEN from actual, legal citizens of the United States of America.

This is obscene. Fortunately I don't think the Senate bill has a chance in the House, nor would a conference bill pass the house with this sort of stuff in it.

The fact that this is even up for debate is just beyond insane. Everyone knows we will never have enough Social Security funds to serve, you know, actual citizens. Every single one of those senators knows that, and they're debating whether we should extend such non-existent, unsustainable, budget-busting, generation-saddling benefits to millions of people who fraudulently entered the system by stealing the identities (and sometimes ruining the credit) of legal Americans?!?

Sen. Ensign, God bless him, offered an amendment suggesting illegals should not be eligible for Social Security benefits accrued while illegal. The U.S. Senate voted to kill that amendment, 50-49. here. Some of the usual Republican suspects voted to kill the amendment. Here's the list: McCain, Specter, Stevens, Voinovich, Lugar, Hagel, Dewine, Chafee, Brownback

Capitol switchboard, baby: (202) 224-3121