Connecticut Sets Up Stimulus Fund for Illegal Alien “Rental Assistance”

By David Jaroslav | FAIR Take | June 2020

More states are continuing to provide COVID-19 “stimulus” funds to illegal aliens despite being in dire fiscal straits due to pandemic lockdowns and the downturn in the local economy.  Connecticut is the latest state to provide taxpayer funds to illegal aliens.

On June 3, Governor Ned Lamont (D) announced that the state would provide a one-time payment of $1,000 for “rental assistance” to illegal aliens ineligible for federal stimulus payments under the CARES Act.  The funds would be paid directly to landlords of tenants.  The Connecticut Department of Housing will shell out $2.5 million of taxpayer monies and $1 million will come from an open-borders group called 4-CT.org. 

The announcement by Governor Lamont was made on the lawn of Make the Road Connecticut, an open-borders group originally founded to push the State to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens (which it has done since 2015).

Open-borders organizations expressed a modicum of gratitude to the governor but have since demanded more money for illegal aliens. Some groups said they would “need” at least $30 million more; others pushed the figure up to as much as $120 million. 

Kica Matos, director of the Center for Immigration and Justice at the Vera Institute in New Haven said “[i]t is a good start, but let me just be clear, it is not enough.” Carmen Lanche of the group Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA) in Norwalk described it as “like giving a few coins to every immigrant in our state.”

Meanwhile, Connecticut is expected to end the current fiscal year on June 30 with a $620 million deficit, and is projected to face a $2.3 billion shortfall in the next year.  It also saw job losses of “epic proportions” in April, the first full month of pandemic lockdowns, with 266,000 jobs lost and unemployment at 17.5 percent.