Michael Wagner, director of the Center for Communication and Civic Renewal and professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said voting against the Young/Cotton amendment is not tantamount to supporting “giving stimulus checks” to nonresident immigrants.
“Stimulus checks only went to people with a Social Security number,” Wagner said in an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin. “Some noncitizens legally employed by DHS can get a Social Security number, and a small number of people in the U.S. on legal temporary working visas may also have been eligible for stimulus checks.”