(Congressional Agenda) – Officials in the Big Apple — New York City — have started handing out prepaid debit cards to illegal aliens who are now living in the area. Any guesses as to where the money came from to fund this particular initiative? If you guessed taxpayer dollars, give yourself fifty million gold stars because you are correct. People are now being financially rewarded for breaking the law and entering the country without legal permission. Why is our nation so backwards?
Oh. That’s right. President Joe Biden.
“The first batch of debit cards, which are reportedly meant to be used by the illegal immigrants to purchase food and baby supplies, were handed out Monday to a handful of migrant families in the city, New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office confirmed to Fox News Digital,” Fox News divulged. “The effort is part of a reported $53 million pilot program to hand out prepaid credit cards to migrant families housed in hotels despite public outcry.”
“The program, which the mayor’s office confirmed will provide migrant families of four with two children under 5 with up to $350 each week until the end of their stay, began with a limited number of families on Monday and will expand to about 115 families, or roughly 460 people, over the next week,” Fox continued.
The cards are only allowed to be used at grocery stores, supermarkets, bodegas, and convenience stores. Illegals who are eligible have to sign an affidavit that says they agree to only spend the money on baby supplies and food. Failure to comply with this stipulation could result in their loss of access to the program.
The Mayor’s office stated the pilot program was started by using a phased approach that began with only a couple of hotels. Officials with the city have pointed out that the prepaid cards will be loaded up with a week’s worth of funds at a time and that use of the cards would be heavily monitored.
“The cards are reportedly being distributed at the city’s arrival center, the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, to the migrant families who are staying at hotels that are being used as emergency shelters. New Jersey company Mobility Capital Finance has partnered with the city to run the program,” Fox noted.
A representative for city hall released a statement to Fox News, pointing out that NYC was “excited” about the new program, going on to describe it as a “cost-saving measure [that] will replace the city’s current system of providing non-perishable food boxes to migrant families staying in hotels, much of which is often discarded.”
“A large part of our success is due to our constant work to find new ways to better serve the hundreds of individuals and families arriving every single day, as well as the longtime New Yorkers experiencing homelessness who are already in our care,” the spokesperson remarked. “That is why we are excited to launch an innovative, cost-saving pilot program with Mobility Capital Finance to distribute pre-paid cards to migrant families to purchase only food and baby supplies.”
“Not only will this provide families with the ability to purchase fresh food for their culturally-relevant diets and the baby supplies of their choosing, but the pilot program is expected to save New York City taxpayers more than $600,000 per month and $7 million per year,” they continued. “The prepaid cards can be used exclusively at select stores to ensure the money is spent on food and baby supplies.”
The program, which is supposed to last for six weeks, allows illegal aliens to get more money from the city than the state currently provides for low-income and elderly New Yorkers. Let that sink in a bit. Folks who are now or at one time contributed to the system are getting less than those who came across the border illegally. The city is awarding criminals for bad behavior and giving them more money than those who are actual law-abiding citizens. This is crazy.
Making an appearance before a state legislative budget hearing last month in Albany, Mayor Eric Adams retorted, “We’re not giving people American Express cards.”
“We found that the food delivery service that we set up during the emergency – we could find a better way to do it in our belief that we want to cut 20% of the migrant costs. So we have a pilot project with 500 people that we are giving them food cards, so instead of a debit card, instead of having to deliver food, and have people eat food — we were seeing wasting food — they’re now able to get their own food, that is going to be spent $12 a day,” he went on to say at the time.
“So we are going to save money on delivery, we’re going to save money on people wasting food, and this is a pilot project we’re going to use that is going to save us $6.7 million a year,” he continued. “And if the pilot turns out to be successful, then we’re going to expand it not only with the migrants and asylum seekers, we’d look to do that expansion throughout the entire system — trying to find smarter, more cost — effective ways to deal with this crisis that was dropped in our lap.”
The government of NYC revealed they will end up spending at minimum, $10.6 billion on illegal aliens by the summer of 2025. The state as a whole has already promised it would contribute $2 billion in the current budget cycle to the crisis, however, Adams informed lawmakers that the state would promise to only cover one-third of the costs.
“Roughly 180,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since 2022, overwhelming city resources as officials have struggled to find housing for them. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has bused asylum-seekers to New York and other cities in an effort to assist them in traveling to sanctuary jurisdictions and also highlight the crisis that border communities face on a daily basis,” Fox News concluded.
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