Senate
Votes to Give Social Security
to Illegal Aliens
etraying
constituents and taxpayers, the U.S. Senate voted in May
to permit illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits
based on past illegal employment, even if they obtained
their jobs through fraud or documents stolen from Americans.
By doing so, the Senate also approved an amnesty for the
use of those fraudulent or stolen documents by the illegals.
"There
was a felony they were committing, and now they can't be
prosecuted," if the bill becomes law, said Sen. John
Ensign, R-NV, who offered an amendment to take those provisions
out of the immigration bill. "That sounds like amnesty
to me," he said. "It just boggles the mind how
people could be against this amendment."
Ensign's
amendment was "tabled" by a vote of 50 to 49,
which means the Senate voted against considering his amendment.
Immigration
advocate Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, who hopes to become the
Republican Party's nominee for president in 2008, said illegal
aliens have "earned" Social Security benefits,
and they should be entitled to receive them after winning
the "guestworker" amnesty that the bill confers
on them.
"The
Ensign amendment would undermine the work of these people
by preventing lawfully present immigrant workers from claiming
Social Security benefits that they earned before they were
authorized to work in our community," he said.
The
Senate immigration bill faces considerable opposition in
the House, which passed its own version of immigration legislation
months ago. As this issue of Middle American News goes to
press, House and Senate members were still negotiating how
to reconcile the two bills.
Here
is the roll call vote on a motion to table the Ensign amendment
on May 18. To table the amendment means to prevent the amendment
from being voted on directly. A "Yes" vote was
in favor of tabling the amendment, a "No" vote
was against tabling.
Voting
Yes - 50
Akaka (D-HI); Baucus (D-MT); Bayh (D-IN); Biden (D-DE);
Bingaman (D-NM); Boxer (D-CA); Brownback (R-KS); Cantwell
(D-WA); Carper (D-DE); Chafee (R-RI); Clinton (D-NY); DeWine
(R-OH); Dodd (D-CT); Dorgan (D-ND); Durbin (D-IL); Feingold
(D-WI); Feinstein (D-CA); Graham (R-SC); Hagel (R-NE); Harkin
(D-IA); Inouye (D-HI); Jeffords (I-VT); Johnson (D-SD);
Kennedy (D-MA); Kerry (D-MA); Kohl (D-WI); Landrieu (D-LA);
Lautenberg (D-NJ); Leahy (D-VT); Levin (D-MI); Lieberman
(D-CT); Lincoln (D-AR); Lugar (R-IN); Martinez (R-FL); McCain
(R-AZ); Menendez (D-NJ); Mikulski (D-MD); Murray (D-WA);
Obama (D-IL); Pryor (D-AR); Reed (D-RI); Reid (D-NV); Salazar
(D-CO); Sarbanes (D-MD); Schumer (D-NY); Specter (R-PA);
Stabenow (D-MI); Stevens (R-AK); Voinovich (R-OH); Wyden
(D-OR)
Voting
No - 49
Alexander (R-TN); Allard (R-CO); Allen (R-VA); Bennett (R-UT);
Bond (R-MO); Bunning (R-KY); Burns (R-MT); Burr (R-NC);
Byrd (D-WV); Chambliss (R-GA); Coburn (R-OK); Cochran (R-MS);
Coleman (R-MN); Collins (R-ME); Conrad (D-ND); Cornyn (R-TX);
Craig (R-ID); Crapo (R-ID); Dayton (D-MN); DeMint (R-SC);
Dole (R-NC); Domenici (R-NM); Ensign (R-NV); Enzi (R-WY);
Frist (R-TN); Grassley (R-IA); Gregg (R-NH); Hatch (R-UT);
Hutchison (R-TX); Inhofe (R-OK); Isakson (R-GA); Kyl (R-AZ);
Lott (R-MS); McConnell (R-KY); Murkowski (R-AK); Nelson
(D-FL); Nelson (D-NE); Roberts (R-KS); Santorum (R-PA);
Sessions (R-AL); Shelby (R-AL); Smith (R-OR); Snowe (R-ME);
Sununu (R-NH); Talent (R-MO); Thomas (R-WY); Thune (R-SD);
Vitter (R-LA); Warner (R-VA)
Not
Voting - 1
Rockefeller (D-WV)
