(RightWing.org) – Phrases and words like “social distancing,” “pandemic,” and “lockdown” became a part of the everyday lexicon of the world beginning in early 2020. Because of this, many cities became nearly ghost towns, and the legendary traffic jams of New York City and Los Angeles were gone from the video feed of the cameras used to monitor the situation.
Many people found themselves out of work without enough money to pay their monthly expenses. The federal government passed a series of relief bills that provided the state and local authorities access to funds that they needed to ease the pain of the industries hardest hit in their particular jurisdictions. But it appears that not all the money went where it was intended to go.
Sleight-Of-Hand
Unless one has lived under a rock for the past several years, the policies of President Joe Biden that allow a flood of illegal aliens to invade the United States are front and center in the battle between Republicans and Democrats. According to a map on bestneighborhood.org, Madison, Wisconsin is painted in dark blue because of the Liberal leanings of its voters.
So it may come as no surprise that a study by the Center for Investigative Oversight (CIO) of the watchdog group the Institute for Reforming Government (IRG) discovered that the politicians of Madison decided to use $700,000 of the money it got as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 on assistance to “Residents who are Undocumented.”
Based on this, Wisconsin State Senator Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) issued a press release in which he raised grave concerns that their actions may have violated the law by misappropriating the funds toward projects arguably forbidden in the legislation.
As Stroebel noted in his April 4 statement, the paperwork filed by the City of Madison recognized the fact that nearly 3/4 of its $1 million total expenditure might violate the spirit if not the letter of the ARPA. The project description itself notes that “these residents… are not eligible to receive direct assistance provided by Federal and State governments,” yet goes on to say that the funding will “provide the means to deliver direct assistance to undocumented individuals and families.”
The Madison Common Council has framed the $700,000 disbursement as a series of grants to several nonprofit groups that either provide services to the illegal community or act as advocates to the public and lawmakers, but Stroebel does not appear convinced that this is not just an end run on the prohibitions of the ARPA.
To that end, he sent a letter to Dory Rey, the city’s grant supervisor, asking to see the grant applications that have been received from several specific entities, any requests that have been denied, and a breakdown of what the money was used for such as “direct cash assistance, gas cards, utility assistance, legal representation, etc.”
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