Michigan GOP lawmakers slam taxpayer-funded hire subsidies for migrants | USAEMALL.com

Michigan GOP lawmakers are elevating the alarm over sure provisions within the state’s “newcomer rental subsidy” program that offers as much as $500 to landlords who hire to migrants. 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration has argued that this system is meant to assist newly-arrived migrants discover inexpensive housing and higher combine. The program, which her administration quietly launched again in October with out enter from the state legislature, gives “refugees and other newcomer population-eligible households with rental assistance up to $500 per month for up to 12 months, with eligibility based on immigration status and household income.” 

To be eligible, migrants have to be refugees, asylees, particular immigration visa holders, victims of human trafficking, Cuban and Haitian entrants, Afghan nationals or Ukrainian humanitarian parolees. Migrants who’ve an asylum declare that’s merely pending are additionally eligible. 

Migrants on the southern border and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (Getty Images)

This implies that migrants who illegally crossed the border and claimed asylum to keep away from deportation might probably profit from the subsidy. 

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If a migrant can not present verification of their revenue – corresponding to a paycheck or financial institution assertion – the applicant should submit a written clarification of why there is no such thing as a documentation. One of the choices accessible to them is a “cash payment.” 

Michigan House Republican Leader Matt Hall has been main a cost to carry extra consciousness to the subsidy program, significantly in gentle of a girl’s homicide final month, allegedly by an unlawful immigrant in Michigan.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer delivers her State of the State handle to a joint session of the House and Senate on Jan. 24, 2024, on the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)

“These are the kinds of policies that attract illegals to our state,” Hall advised Fox News Digital in an interview. “And you see some of them bringing drugs and some of them committing serious crimes … they’re going to go to places where they’re going to get state benefits, where they’re not going to be asked about their immigration status, where they’re not going to be held in jail or deported.” 

It stays unclear what number of migrants who crossed the border illegally after which claimed asylum as a protection towards deportation have acquired advantages from this program. Hall and Michigan Rep. Joe Aragona, R-Clinton Township, the Republican vice chair of the Housing Subcommittee, despatched a letter to the governor’s workplace final week in search of a “detailed breakdown of the recipients,” with a selected emphasis on those that made asylum claims solely after they have been discovered to be within the U.S. illegally. 

“Resources are finite and must be allocated judiciously to ensure the program is available to the refugees and others for whom it is intended, and it is crucial that the program aligns with its intended goals and prioritizes those who have gone through the process correctly and are not facing imminent removal from the United States,” the lawmakers wrote. 

Hall mentioned he had not acquired a response from the governor’s workplace answering these questions. Fox News Digital has reached out a number of instances to the governor’s workplace for remark however didn’t hear again earlier than publication. 

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.