Tuesday’s congressional hearing for Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson featured lots of angry Democrats saying nasty things about him and his department’s plan to deny public assistance to illegal immigrants.
At the hearing, held by the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., told Carson his proposal “would bring nothing but despair to thousands of American families.”
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., chairwoman of the committee, called HUD’s plan “cruel.”
Long before Carson showed up in front of a committee of outraged Democrats, the Left lost any common sense or credibility in addressing the question of whether to provide taxpayer subsidies to illegal immigrants. Their answer is almost always a reflexive and sanctimonious yes.
Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., proposed “Medicare for All” bill that grants free healthcare to every resident in the United States, including illegal immigrants.
When asked about her support for the bill in general, and specifically about giving universal healthcare to those living here illegally, presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., defended her position vigorously. “Let me just be very clear about this,” Harris said, “I’m opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period.”
[Also read: Ilhan Omar and Ben Carson feud over whether he is ‘sleepy’]
Given that the Left and its prominent presidential candidates believe so proudly and vehemently in illegal immigrants’ right to government benefits, surely it is no surprise that they would feel that way about this group’s ability to access public housing benefits.
Under HUD’s proposal, federal housing subsidies will no longer be provided to families of mixed-immigration status. Currently, even though illegal immigrants are prohibited from receiving such funding, they are allowed to live in HUD-subsidized residences as long as at least one person (usually a child born in the U.S.) in the residence has eligible immigration status. HUD assistance for that household’s rent payment would be prorated to cover only the legal resident.
At the hearing, Carson argued that HUD must prioritize giving federal public assistance to the long list of Americans waiting for housing, not illegal immigrants. He further pointed out that one cannot “prorate a roof over somebody’s head.”
HUD has also made clear that even though existing law requires that prorated assistance be distributed only to families with a head of household or spouse with eligible immigration status, HUD currently does not enforce this requirement for families with mixed immigration status. The department’s proposed rule is designed to rectify this and other problems.
Common sense would seem to indicate that tax dollars collected from hardworking citizens should go to helping other citizens, not those whose act of entering this country in itself was illegal. Common sense also would seem to indicate that the laws passed by a democratically elected government should be followed and enforced, rather than flouted by its own agencies.
Yet, the Left appears to have lost all common sense.
When Carson ran for president in 2016, he issued an immigration policy plan that said the following: “Regrettably, our national debate on immigration is characterized by racial pandering and political giveaways. Common-sense solutions are regularly branded as racist, xenophobic and mean-spirited, while prized ideals — such as citizenship — are offered by politicians as handouts in radical attempts to alter our demographics and pave the way to future electoral victories.”
Indeed, Carson’s common-sense proposal at HUD has been repeatedly branded as mean-spirited, and politicians on the Left have made clear they will enthusiastically defend government handouts to non-Americans in order to continue playing their cynical political games.
Though the Left’s most prominent politicians continue to claim they are defending the interests of all Americans, those claims increasingly ring hollow.
Ying Ma is the author of “Chinese Girl in the Ghetto,” which was released in audiobook in 2018. During the 2016 election, she served as the deputy director of the Committee for American Sovereignty, a pro-Trump super PAC, and the deputy policy director and deputy communications director of the Ben Carson presidential campaign. Follow her on Twitter: @GZtoGhetto.
