49 Republicans Help Democrats Pass Billions in Welfare, Driver’s Licenses for 95K Afg
49 Republicans Help Democrats Pass Billions in Welfare, Driver’s Licenses for 95K Afghans Brought to U.S.
John Binder30 Sep 2021
https://media.breitbart.com/media/20...74-640x480.jpgDrew Angerer/Getty Images
A total of 49 House and Senate Republicans helped Democrats pass billions in American taxpayer money on welfare, driver’s licenses, housing costs, and more for Afghans brought to the United States as part of President Joe Biden’s massive resettlement operation.
On Thursday, 34 House Republicans and 15 Senate Republicans voted with Democrats to approve $6.4 billion in taxpayer money for the roughly 95,000Afghans that Biden hopes to bring to the U.S. over the next 12 months — a population nine times larger than Jackson, Wyoming’s resident population.
The Republican lawmakers backed the funding provisions despite overwhelming opposition to Afghan resettlement from Republican and Republican-leaning voters. The latest Pew Research Center survey shows that 63 percent of GOP voters oppose the Afghan resettlement.
Already, as Breitbart News reported, 40,800 Afghans are temporarily living at eight U.S. military bases in Texas, Virginia, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Indiana, and New Jersey.
The funding for Biden’s resettlement operation was slipped into a government funding bill and will give public benefits like welfare, housing assistance, medical coverage, and state-issued driver’s licenses to tens of thousands of newly-arrived Afghans.
Specifically, the provision giving IDs and driver’s licenses allow Afghans to skirt vital national security requirements put in place after the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks, according to some lawmakers and expert Andrew Arthur:
I will leave it up to others to decide whether giving massive amounts of cash to aliens who have no real status in the United States is a good idea or not. My main concern is the fact the [funding bill] makes paroled Afghan nationals eligible for driver’s licenses and identification cards, even if they are barred from receiving them under a law passed to protect the American people against national-security risks. [Emphasis added]
…
Section 202(b)(2)(C) of the REAL ID Act requires states to ensure that applicants for driver’s licenses have lawful status in the United States (including citizenship or a green card). Section 2502 in the [funding bill] would explicitly waive that requirement — not for you, or for those green card holders — but rather exclusively for paroled Afghan nationals. [Emphasis added]
Likewise, the funding bill leaves Biden’s resettlement operation wide open for future waves of Afghans to be brought to the U.S. by extending such resettlement to September 2022 and beyond for the foreign relatives of Afghans who get resettled in American communities.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), who voted against the funding bill, said the provisions “opens the U.S. to unlimited refugee resettlement from Afghanistan with zero vetting, putting our security at even greater risk.”
The 34 House Republicans who voted for the funding bill include:
- Mark Amodei (R-NV)
- Tom Cole (R-OK)
- Rodney Davis (R-IL)
- Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
- Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
- Andrew Garbarino (R-NY)
- Carlos Giménez (R-FL)
- Tony Gonzalez (R-TX)
- Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH)
- Garrett Graves (R-LA)
- Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA)
- Clay Higgins (R-LA)
- John Katko (R-NY)
- Young Kim (R-CA)
- Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)
- Doug LaMalfa (R-CA)
- Julia Letlow (R-LA)
- Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY)
- Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
- Peter Meijer (R-MI)
- Blake Moore (R-UT)
- Dan Newhouse (R-WA)
- Jay Obernolte (R-CA)
- Tom Reed (R-NY)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Hal Rogers (R-KY)
- Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL)
- Mike Simpson (R-ID)
- Chris Smith (R-NJ)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
- Mike Turner (R-OH)
- Fred Upton (R-MI)
- David Valadao (R-CA)
- Don Young (R-AK)
Meanwhile, the 15 Senate Republicans who voted for the funding bill include:
- Roy Blunt (R-MO)
- Richard Burr (R-NC)
- Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Susan Collins (R-ME)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
- John Kennedy (R-LA)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
- Mitt Romney (R-UT)
- Mike Rounds (R-SD)
- Richard Shelby (R-AL)
- Thom Tillis (R-NC)
- Todd Young (R-IN)
Refugee contractors, funded by taxpayer money to annually resettle refugees, will be awarded $1.7 billion to “provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services, including wrap-around services during temporary housing and after resettlement, housing assistance, medical assistance, legal assistance, and case management assistance.”
Refugee resettlement costs taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years. Over the course of a lifetime, taxpayers pay about $133,000 per refugee and within five years of resettlement, roughly 16 percent will need taxpayer-funded housing assistance.
Over the last 20 years, nearly a million refugees have been resettled in the nation — more than double that of residents living in Miami, Florida, and it would be the equivalent of annually adding the population of Pensacola, Florida.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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