Senate Democrats Block Measure to Limit Taxpayer Funds for Flying Illegal Migrants

(RepublicanNews.org) – All of the Senate Democrats voted against a proposed amendment to prevent taxpayer money from being spent on flying illegal immigrants to settle across the country.

The amendment was spearheaded by Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, who wrote online after the decision that every single Democratic senator opposed the amendment, which would have stopped the Biden administration from allocating tax dollars toward funding charter flights carrying illegal immigrants from their home nations into the U.S. for resettlement. Hagerty called his Democratic colleagues’ position “indefensible.”

Hagerty announced his intentions to file the amendment on Thursday, March 21st, which would bar any federal money from going towards operations flying illegal immigrants “directly” into American states from other nations. The proposal from Hagerty came after emerging reports that the Biden administration covertly flew about 320,000 illegal immigrants from their countries of origin directly into the U.S. last year.

The amendment was in response to recent news stories reporting the Biden administration flew an estimated 320,000 illegal immigrants from their home nations to the U.S. in 2023. White House officials have denied these reports and dismissed them as inaccurate.

On the Senate floor on Friday, March 22nd, Hagerty simplified the issue into a single question, asking his colleagues if they support tax dollars going toward flying illegal immigrants into the country from foreign nations to settle in a city or town near them. If their answer was “yes,” Hagerty told the senators to vote against him.

In a vote of 51-47, the amendment was struck down, with every Democratic senator present voting against it. The vote happened in the middle of a late-night session to finalize a budget package that would avoid another government shutdown.

After the vote, Hagerty took to social media and said that his Democratic colleagues in the Senate “are afraid to take a position” on the “failed policies” of Biden. He accused them of preferring a government shutdown over taking a position on the president’s failures.

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