Twenty-six\nmillion Americans have lost their jobs in the last five weeks due to the\nCOVID-19 pandemic. Small businesses are struggling to maintain operations.\nThere is a sense of uncertainty about what will happen if the pandemic sticks\naround and the aftershocks it will leave on our economy. Yet despite these very\nserious concerns, many mainstream media outlets still continue to focus on the\nplight of illegal aliens rather than American citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent weeks, The Boston Globe<\/a> and the Associated Press<\/a> have both been guilty of misplaced priorities by complaining that the federal government is not also providing illegal aliens with $1,200 stimulus checks. The Texas Tribune can now be added to this list. On the same day that the federal government revealed<\/a> that 22 million Americans had lost their jobs in a single month, the news organization published<\/a> an article claiming that illegal aliens make up 8 percent of the Texas workforce and often pay their taxes. And as a result, the author makes the argument that they also deserve a stimulus check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As FAIR mentioned in a previous blog<\/a>, stating that illegal aliens contribute to the economy by paying taxes is one of the most misleading arguments that the open-border lobby \u2013 or the open-borders media in this case \u2013 can make. Because, even with taxes paid taken into consideration, they still cost American taxpayers a net $132 billion<\/a> annually in health care, education, and the already existing forms of welfare and subsidies that they receive. In Texas alone, illegal aliens and their children cost taxpayers nearly $11 billion<\/a> annually. They are knowingly breaking the law by remaining in the country and are receiving billions of dollars in benefits as a result. Providing them with stimulus checks would just further reward lawless behavior to an even greater extent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n