Bernie Moreno dupes Sherrod Brown's votes for federal aid for undocumented immigrants

An ad by Republican Bernie Moreno in a high-profile Senate campaign blames incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) for providing federal benefits to immigrants living in the country illegally.

“For nearly 50 years, politician Sherrod Brown helped create the crisis at our southern border,” a spokesperson says, as Brown's image is superimposed over images of migrant caravans and a controversial brawl between migrants and police in Times Square. “He voted with radicals like Kamala Harris to give stimulus checks, health care and even welfare to illegal immigrants using taxpayer money, rewarding illegal immigrants with it. Sherrod Brown created the crisis.”

The ad also says Moreno, a businessman who has never held elected office, will secure the border and deport “illegals.” According to Politico, this is part of a $25 million ad campaign that will run on television, streaming, radio, digital and by mail leading up to Election Day.

We asked the Moreno campaign for evidence supporting the claim that Brown, who was elected to Congress in 1992 and the Senate in 2006, voted to provide federal benefits to immigrants living in the country illegally. Moreno campaign spokesman Reagan McCarthy cited votes Brown cast in 2007, 2013 and 2021.

Moreno's claims are similar to previous statements that we have reviewed and found to be misleading.

Immigrants living in the country illegally are generally not entitled to most state benefits.

Let us go through these claims one by one.

Stimulus checks required Social Security numbers

McCarthy cited Brown's opposition to an amendment to the American Rescue Plan by Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on March 6, 2021, as evidence that Brown voted to give stimulus checks to immigrants living in the country illegally.

The American Rescue Plan already excluded people who were in the country illegally from stimulus aid by requiring Social Security numbers and excluding “any nonresident alien person” from the program. The Cruz amendment would have closed a potential loophole that might have allowed immigrants who overstayed their temporary work visas to use their Social Security numbers to receive stimulus aid, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee made an identical false claim against Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) in 2022. The American Rescue Plan, authored by Democrats and enacted in 2021, required people to have a Social Security number to receive benefits, with the exception of dependents who have an adoption taxpayer ID and people married to military members.

So Brown's vote against Cruz's amendment did not allow people living in the country illegally to receive stimulus checks.

Migrants are not entitled to state-subsidized health care

On March 23, 2013, Brown rejected a budget amendment by then-Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) that would have denied illegal immigrants access to federally subsidized health care. Moreno's account of that vote is also misleading.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, immigrants who are in the country illegally are not eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program and cannot purchase subsidized health insurance through the government portal.

The amendment was part of what is known as a “vote-a-rama.” The Budget Act limits debate on budget measures to 50 hours, but sets no deadline for considering amendments to the bill during the budget reconciliation process. MPs are introducing a litany of amendments to delay the vote on the final measure and force the opposition to vote on controversial issues.

Steven Smith, professor emeritus of political science and former director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis, said Sessions' amendment had “no political impact.”

“Zero. Nada,” Smith said via email. “Other legislation would have to be passed for it to have any possible significance.”

The changes to the reconciliation bill must be budget-related, Smith said, so an amendment that would prohibit immigrants living in the country illegally from receiving welfare benefits would be inappropriate.

Brown campaign spokesman Matt Keyes said Brown voted the same day for a similar amendment by then-Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J., as for Sessions' amendment, which reiterated that immigrants living in the country illegally cannot receive federal benefits. That amendment passed by voice vote.

Social security requires legal status

McCarthy, Moreno's spokesman, pointed to a July 19, 2007, vote by Brown to defeat an amendment to the College Cost Reduction and Access Act by then-Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.). The amendment would have prevented immigrants who later obtained legal status from receiving credit for Social Security contributions while in the country illegally. The amendment required a minimum of 60 votes, but was defeated by only 57.

The bill would have denied welfare benefits to immigrants who were in the country illegally. It would have changed the calculation for legal immigrants, who must pay into the system before obtaining legal status.

And that's not the whole story. Ensign proposed a similar amendment to an appropriations bill on October 23, 2007, which passed with 92 votes, including Brown's.

Keyes added that on June 26, 2013, Brown voted again on an amendment to an immigration law that would have prohibited immigrants living in the country illegally from receiving welfare benefits for work they did illegally.

This is not the first time we have investigated such a claim. Republican Sharron Angle of Nevada made a nearly identical claim against then-Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) in 2010. We found that it misled voters because it inaccurately described the impact of the change and failed to take other voices into account.

Our verdict

Moreno said Brown voted to “give illegal immigrants stimulus checks, health care and even welfare from taxpayer funds.”

The three voices cited by Moreno's campaign team would have denied immigrants living in the country illegally any state benefits. The American Rescue Plan already excluded them from receiving stimulus checks. Federal law already barred them from being eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program and prohibited them from purchasing insurance through the state exchange.

Moreno also makes false statements about Brown's vote on Social Security. The vote would have denied benefits to immigrants in the country illegally, but changed the allocation of immigrants who later obtained legal status. Brown also later voted for legislation almost identical to the one Moreno cited.

We consider the claim to be false.