Stimulus Package Took A Major Swerve

Now that the Senate is looking into the House's 'stimulus' package, we find a(nother) huge, gaping, glaring, ugly hole: illegal immigrants will receive these tax 'refund' checks, too.

Sen. John Ensign is attempting to introduce language that would bar illegal aliens from receiving these checks that should only go to legal tax-paying citizens, and it appears that Democrats are willing to play ball, at least for the moment.  Given their track record of trying to secure benefits for illegals, though, it's a legitimate question on whether or not they'll follow through.  House aids are suggesting that this loophole doesn't exist, citing the following reasons:

1. The bill includes language similar to the provisions included in the 2001 and 2003 tax relief bills designed specifically to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving benefits. There is no language in the measure that would enable illegal immigrants to receive a tax rebate.

2. Illegal immigrants who steal or fabricate a Social Security number are NOT ELIGIBLE to receive checks under the House bill.

3. An illegal immigrant who files taxes based on stolen or fraudulent information in order to attempt to receive a check under the House bill is committing tax fraud.

Uh-huh.  Exactly how likely do you think illegal immigrants are going to be to not steal or fabricate a SSN or commit tax fraud?  Are they going to break the law to get here and take up permanent residence, and then suddenly stop breaking the law after that?  Do they really think the American people are that blindly stupid?  Get real!  Michelle Malkin's response is:

1) There's no harm in clarifying the language in a proactive, ironclad way to make certain it's barred by law. Right?

2) We know enough about how understaffed and shortchanged "ongoing enforcement and program integrity efforts" are to know that fraud will happen, it will go undetected or unpunished, and these checks will get into illegal aliens' hands. We also know that in the land of reality, ITINs [Individual Tax Identification Numbers] are being used by illegal aliens for work, for banking purposes, to obtain driver's licenses, to obtain home loans, and to file tax returns.

Regardless of whether or not this loophole was intended, it should be very informative to see how the Senate actually votes on closing it, especially the presidential candidates.

There's another unspoken point hidden in here, too: if the government is planning to send tax 'refund' checks to illegal aliens as part of this 'stimulus', that would mean they have names and addresses, right?  If they have names and addresses, then they must know where a lot of illegal aliens are, so that might possibly lead to the question of...wait for it...wait for it...

WHY HAVEN'T THEY BEEN DEPORTED?!?!?!

There's my two cents.