Ocasio-Cortez says illegal aliens pay as much in taxes as 'anyone else,' calls Republicans cruel for preventing assistance to them

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) excoriated the government's response to the coronavirus epidemic and claimed that children in the U.S. were attending schools funded by taxes paid by illegal aliens.

The firebrand democratic socialist made the claims in an online video published on Thursday.

"Yes, so this is a very important question. So this administration in the negotiations for this bill basically said anything for immigrants is a non-starter," she said, referring to illegal aliens.

She went on to say that Democrats fought for benefits for illegal aliens, but Republicans would not pass the bill with those provisions included.

"Yes, undocumented people pay taxes. Undocumented people pay billions of dollars in taxes every year. We send our kids to public school on the taxes that undocumented people pay," Ocasio-Cortez said.

"Undocumented people pay more money in taxes than Amazon or Facebook, or anything combined. So yes, I believe that if you pay into this system, you should benefit from this system, she added.

"So there is not cash assistance for the undocumented, you have to have a Social Security number," Ocasio-Cortez explained.

She also pointed illegal aliens to possible assistance from state-funded social safety net benefits. She concluded by saying that illegal aliens paid more in taxes than anyone else.

"So um, so some of these state programs are eligible for you if you are undocumented," she concluded, "but what just passed here in the CARE act very cruelly cut out undocumented people, despite the fact that they pay into the system just as much as anyone else."

Critics of these kinds of claims point out that although illegal aliens do indeed pay taxes in various forms, they also place an enormous burden on social services, with some estimates running into more than $100 billion per year.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted similar claims in July 2019, saying, "people who are undocumented pay taxes! Public goods aren't 'gifts' to immigrants - they pay for your kids' schooling too."

Despite tweeting that she would make her claim "for the last time," Ocasio-Cortez has repeated the claim many times since July 2019.

Here's the video of Ocasio-Cortez: