Source: Breitbart
Senate Democrats have left the door open for convicted criminal illegal aliens to benefit from an amnesty slipped into their $3.5 trillion budget resolution.
This week, Senate Democrats unveiled the budget framework, which includes a series of instructions for various Senate committees to craft specific plans. As such, the framework instructs the Senate Judiciary Committee to spend $107 billion in American taxpayer money on amnesty for illegal aliens.
Early Wednesday morning, all 50 Senate Democrats voted against an amendment by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) which would ban illegal aliens with criminal records from getting amnesty. All 49 Senate Republicans supported the amendment.
“We shouldn’t allow criminals to enter our country and become American citizens. Plain and simple,” Grassley said in a statement.
The rejection of the amendment in the Senate indicates that Democrats could include convicted criminal illegal aliens as beneficiaries in their amnesty plan. The details have not yet been hammered out. Grassley said:
I was glad to author this commonsense amendment to help ensure we don’t reward people who have a track record of breaking the law. Unfortunately, my Democratic colleagues all voted against this amendment and halted our efforts to stop criminal illegal immigrants from receiving citizenship.
Likewise, all 50 Senate Democrats voted down an amendment by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) that would have made permanent the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Title 42 authority that allows federal immigration officials to quickly return border crossers to their native countries for the sake of American public health.
For months, the Biden administration has considered ending Title 42. Experts have warned that such a move would invite an even larger flood of illegal immigration to the United States-Mexico border.
Meanwhile, 93 Senate Democrats voted with Republicans in support of Sen. Roger Marshall’s amendment to ban the federal government from releasing coronavirus-positive border crossers and illegal aliens into American communities.
Eleven Democrats voted against the amendment, including Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Another amendment, proposed by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), to authorize the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to deport more convicted criminal illegal aliens passed on a 53-46 vote with only Democrat Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) joining all 49 Senate Republicans.
The votes, at this moment, are largely symbolic as the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget resolution still has to go through a number of legislative hurdles.
Any amnesty plan crafted by Democrats is expected to give green cards, which lead to naturalized American citizenship, to millions of illegal aliens eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), those working on U.S. farms, and those considered “essential” workers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
