Brian Bilbray: “I would ask, as I listened to my colleague from California, that my colleagues from all over the country recognize that…”

“I would ask, as I listened to my colleague from California, that my colleagues from all over the country recognize that for those of us that operated public assistance programs locally, this law, this amendment, is an amendment to mandate welfare fraud. You do not understand this. Let me correct you. The fact here is if this mandate passes, you have somebody who is illegally in the country, who will be getting a public assistance payment only for their child; and the Federal law says that it is illegal for that person to work, it is illegal for that person to be in the country, and it is illegal for the parent to use the welfare check to support themselves. This is what we run into in southern California many times. You have parents of legal citizens who are taking checks. It is illegal for them to work, it is illegal to support themselves with the check, and that, Mr. Chairman, is why in one study we found 75 percent fraud in this category, and the rest of it basically is obviously fraud because it is a catch-22. So you are in a situation that when you say you are going to give illegal aliens public assistance funds for their children, you are de facto either giving them money to support themselves in violation of the welfare law, or you are condoning the fact that they are working in violation of the law. They are not declaring income, which is a violation of their welfare status for their child. So what we have is a catch-22 in an absurd situation.…”