Harmeet Dhillon Appears on ‘Fox News at Night with Shannon Bream’ To Discuss CA Sued Over $75 Million Relief Plan for Illegal Immigrants
According to Dhillon (Video Transcript):
It’s a great emotional appeal, Shannon. However, it’s illegal. There are two main reasons. One is that the California constitution forbids the state government from handing out a giant slush fund, in this case $75 million of taxpayer money, to nonprofits to then distribute to the public. That is simply unconstitutional. That’s the basis of the writ. Beyond that, these funds are not being appropriated for a purpose that’s authorized under federal law or state law. State law prohibits the giving of unemployment benefits to undocumented workers, and federal law also prohibits this in multiple different respects. So there are a couple of exceptions for when the state legislature has specifically appropriated these funds, i.e. somebody is accountable politically. That has not happened in California. While the state can give a lot of other types of benefits to these folks who are obviously suffering like everybody else, giving them cash benefits in lieu of unemployment compensation is simply unconstitutional and illegal.
Of course they go straight to the emotional appeal, just like Robert did. Robert will be happy to know that I agree the PPP program has been bungled by banks and greedy corporations, so I’ll be suing a lot — filing a lawsuit on that, as well, no worries. However, it’s simply unconstitutional to do this, and a slush fund is exactly what it is. It is unaccountable, $50 million of money is coming from the private sector, but that itself does not make — that type of money laundering through unnamed corporations and nonprofits does not save this from being a violation of the California constitution. Nobody here is at risk of starving. We have other programs for that. The specific issue is unemployment benefits. This is a political stunt. In fact, this money is only going to cover a fraction of those people who are working here illegally, in violation of state and federal law, so I think this is a foot in the direction of giving a lot more money for this type of program. And by the way, other states are trying to do it. Oregon is trying to do it. I’ve heard New York is trying to do it, as well. This is a big problem and I believe the Attorney General has been made aware of this, as well.
Thanks, Shannon.
