Millions of families with mixed immigration status in US are eligible for Covid relief for first time

Families with an undocumented person who pays taxes were excluded from the first Covid relief bill earlier this year

Millions of Americans who live in families with mixed immigration status will be eligible for coronavirus stimulus checks for the first time as part of the new federal aid package.

On Sunday Donald Trump signed the $900 billion spending bill, which means that US citizens and permanent residents who file joint tax returns with their undocumented spouses will be eligible to receive the law’s $600 relief checks, as well as claim $600 per dependent child.

When the CARES relief bill was enacted in March, families who were registered to pay taxes but lacked Social Security numbers because of their immigration status were excluded from the rescue package.

The latest stimulus payouts, which lawmakers are considering expanding after the president’s surprise move to buck his own party and demand larger checks, also lets mixed-status families retroactively claim the CARES Act’s $1,200 checks and $500 per child from the last round. 

An estimated 16.7 million people live in mixed-status households in the US, including 8.2 million US-born or naturalized citizens.

The new provisions don’t cover everyone though. Undocumented people on their own, and those who lack Social Security numbers and don’t file tax returns, aren’t eligible for aid, and neither are the US citizen children of parents who lack Social Security numbers.

Still, leaders on both sides of the aisle celebrated the new addition.

"Fixing the provision that denied some eligible American citizens from receiving a federal stimulus check under the CARES Act was an oversight that needed correction," Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, told CBS. "No American should have been blocked from receiving federal assistance during a global pandemic because of who they married."

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, also celebrated the reform.

"It was unfair and absurd that millions of taxpayers in need of assistance to feed their families, many in the immigrant community with U.S. citizen children and working on the frontlines, were previously denied access to these survival funds," Mr Schumer said. "I am pleased we were able to extend this economic lifeline to additional families in need."

Immigrants and advocates criticized the original aid package for excluding so many millions of American families.

“I am American, and when I was slapped with this I was like I didn’t need the money. It was more like: how dare you tell me that I don’t have the right of other Americans,” said Citlali, a woman married to an unauthorized migrant, who used a pseudonym to describe her experience to WBEZ due to safety concerns.

In May, Georgetown University’s Institute of Constitutional Advocacy and Protection filed a lawsuit against the first federal aid bill, arguing it discriminated by denying equal protection to the US citizen children of undocumented migrants.

“The refusal to distribute this benefit to US citizen children undermines the CARES Act’s goals of providing assistance to Americans in need, frustrates the Act’s efforts to jumpstart the economy, and punishes citizen children for their parents’ status — punishment that is particularly nonsensical given that undocumented immigrants, collectively, pay billions of dollars each year in taxes,” Mary McCord, legal director of the institute, said at the time.

However the approach has precedent. Using government-issued Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, many families that include undocumented people pay US taxes. In fact most US immigrants pay taxes in one form or another but they don’t always have access to the social safety net. 

Programs like child tax credit, food stamps, and housing assistance are open to them, but relief like tax rebates during the 2008 financial crisis were not.

The Covid pandemic has shone a light on this inequity. Millions of immigrants are essential workers, while the coronavirus has disproportionately affected immigrant communities and caused outbreaks at migrant detention centers.