Some citizens won't get stimulus if their spouses or parents are unauthorized immigrants
Millions of U.S. citizens won’t get help from stimulus checks because their spouses or parents are unauthorized immigrants
U.S. citizens and authorized immigrants in mixed-status families are left out of federal aid because of restrictions against unauthorized immigrants.
Christina Segundo is angry. She’s a U.S. citizen, raising four children in Fort Worth with her husband. Friends around her are receiving $1,200 or more under the government’s colossal stimulus effort.
But Segundo gets nothing. She and her immigrant husband file taxes jointly and he uses a federal ITIN, an individual taxpayer identification number. Such couples have been surgically excluded from help.
Millions of U.S. citizens won’t get federal stimulus assistance under the $2 trillion pandemic aid package because there are also unauthorized immigrants in their families. The CARES Act excludes unauthorized immigrants and most U.S. citizens or legal immigrant spouses who file taxes jointly with unauthorized immigrants or immigrants without a Social Security number, making an exception for military families.
Some argue that in a time of dire need, the government should look out for its U.S. citizens first.
“They were working in the country illegally in the first place, and therefore you should not be given a check for losing a job that you were illegally holding,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the immigration-restrictionist Federation for American Immigration Reform.
But Mehlman was not aware that some U.S. citizens were being barred from assistance in an attempt to carve out unauthorized immigrants from the aid.
“People who are U.S. citizens are entitled to all the benefits that they qualify for, but that should not extend to family members who are in the country illegally,” he said.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/04/16/shes-a-us-citizen-her-husband-isnt-so-she-cant-get-a-stimulus-check/
