Can someone help me find a bill passed by the Senate?

[valerief]

A rightie friend forwarded me a rightie email about how citizens can't survive on social security but illegal aliens are living it up on it. The forwarded email was dated 3/18/07 and, amidst the rightie rhetoric, had this paragraph.

> > The Senate voted this week to allow "illegal" aliens access to Social
> > Security benefits. I'm sorry, but how can the Senate justify this slap

I did searches in thomas.loc.gov, but I'm not very good at navigating around there. Does anyone know what this vote was about?

Thanks.

[POAS]

1. Just email back

and request proof of the assertion.

[valerief]

3. Oh, that will never happen. I want to read the bill and see how

the facts may have been twisted and point this out to my friend. She still watches Fox Noose, but she's disheartened with Prez Bush. She and her husband are just working stiffs. They have no right being Republicans anyway.

[mcscajun]

2. The burden of proof is on the person who sent it to you.

Call them on it.

[valerief]

4. Well, I just did call them on it. I expect that will be the end of it.

I wanted to find out, if the bill exists, what it was really about and point this out to my friend.

[MGKrebs]

5. I don't see anything obvious.

But something like that might be buried in a big budget bill. And a lot of times the implications of provisions in those budget bills are complicated and can be interpreted in more than one way.

Looks like most of what they voted on this week was rejected.


http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_110_1.htm

I think you can safely say that you looked and there is no bill with a name like "To provide access to Social Security benefits for illegal aliens", so if they want to spread that info around, they should come up with the name or number of the bill.

[valerief]

6. Thanks for checking. I thought it might be something buried, too.

It's hard to get those Bill O'Reilly lovers to climb over the fence without facts. Of course, they don't need facts to adore Falafel Bill.

[Solon]

7. How would an Illegal alien be able to collect benefits?

Don't they need Social Security numbers first? And those that do have a (dead person's) SS#, didn't they or their employer commit fraud to get it? In addition, what's to stop the INS from arresting and deporting them when they come in to collect benefits? Such a bill wouldn't be able to pass the Senate, much less be able to provide a single benefit for illegal aliens.

[MGKrebs]

8. I can imagine some scam where a legal resident claims someone

as a dependent or spouse or something like that, and collects extra based on that.
That's just a wild-ass guess, and I don't know what legislation would look like that would affect that, but I'd bet that this claim being made is based on something like that, although it could easily be a silly interpretation of something. Wouldn't be the first time.