FactChecking Barrasso’s Claims About Stimulus Check Recipients

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming defended his vote against the American Rescue Plan Act, in part, by claiming that the legislation would provide $1,400 stimulus checks to prisoners and “illegal immigrants” who shouldn’t receive them.

But, last year, when he and his fellow Republicans controlled the Senate and the White House, Barrasso voted for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act in March and the Consolidated Appropriations Act in December. Those bills — which included stimulus checks to individuals of up to $1,200 and $600, respectively — also didn’t prohibit payments to prisoners. And the bills included the same language denying checks to “any nonresident alien individual” that Barrasso now claims is insufficient.

During a March 7 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Barrasso said this about