WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., today sent a letter to his colleagues about the taxpayer-funded giveaway to illegal aliens in the SCHIP bill the House will vote on today.

The text of the letter is below.

Oppose the Multi-Billion-Dollar Giveaway to Illegal Aliens
Vote No on H.R. 976

September 25, 2007

Dear Colleague,

Later today, the Democratic Leadership will ask you to vote on a deeply flawed bill that seeks to spend billions of taxpayer-funded dollars to facilitate the enrollment of illegal aliens onto the rolls of the Medicaid Program. In fact, by overturning the existing federal requirement that States document the citizenship status and identity of individuals applying for public assistance under the Medicaid program, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates federal taxpayers will be forced to spend an additional $3.7 billion over the next ten years. When you add the required State-level spending, this results in a total $6.5 billion being spent on individuals who wouldn’t otherwise be qualified to receive these benefits.

H.R. 976 defrauds the American taxpayer out of billions of dollars by allowing States to use Social Security Numbers in the place of documents that actually prove citizenship status and identity. In response to this ridiculous provision, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) had the following response: “A Social Security card (or having a valid SSN) does not denote citizenship, and is not useful for determining citizenship status . . . Social Security cards issued to noncitizens who are residing permanently in the United States are identical to those issued to U.S. citizens. In addition, aliens who are in the United States temporarily are also eligible for valid SSNs.” (CRS Memorandum, “The Usefulness of Social Security Cards for Determining U.S. Citizenship”)

In a recent letter to Ranking Member McCrery, the Commissioner of Social Security, Michael Astrue, reinforces CRS’s findings and repeatedly states that his agency cannot determine the citizenship status of an individual by simply matching a name with a Social Security Number.  Making the language in H.R. 976 even more egregious is the fact that this provision allows applicants to be approved for public assistance money without even showing any proof that they actually are the person they are claiming to be. Under this scheme, an individual could simply steal your name and Social Security Number and use it to access thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded benefits. Is this the kind of behavior that the Democratic Leadership is seeking to encourage?

While I am a strong supporter of the SCHIP program, I simply cannot vote for a bill that flagrantly encourages illegal aliens to break our immigration laws and fraudulently enroll in taxpayer-funded public assistance programs. I ask that you join with me in voting against this deeply flawed bill and for a shorter-term extension of the existing program. Hopefully, with more time, we can develop a bipartisan, long-term reauthorization which will actually uphold our existing immigration laws.

Respectfully,
      /S/
Nathan Deal
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Health
Committee on Energy and Commerce