Americans Will Get Stimulus Paychecks Soon. Undocumented Workers Get Nothing.
As Americans await their much-needed paychecks from the government in response to the coronavirus pandemic, millions of people on the front lines of the crisis won’t be getting a dime: undocumented workers.
When Congress passed the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package last month, it included urgently needed cash payments for low-income Americans as businesses shuttered nationwide: $1,200 per individual, $2,400 for joint filers and an additional $500 per child.
However, it excluded millions of immigrants from getting relief. The bill’s language leaves out those without Social Security numbers — largely undocumented people — who may file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). In 2015, 4.35 million immigrants paid over $13.7 billion in net taxes using an ITIN, according to the American Immigration Council.
The bill also cuts off aid to potentially millions of U.S. citizen children, since “mixed-status” families that include both undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens are not eligible for the cash assistance. Of about 11.3 million undocumented people in the U.S., some 3.3 million live with at least one U.S. citizen child, per a Migration Policy Institute analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
Meanwhile, these same undocumented immigrant workers are overrepresented in fields that have experienced massive layoffs due to stay-at-home orders, including workers in the restaurant and hotel industries and domestic workers like nannies and house cleaners.
They also make up significant portions of the front-line workers deemed “essential” — from farmworkers to building cleaners — who are still going to work, risking their lives in a pandemic while millions of Americans stay home.
These same workers are often earning meager wages — 38% of immigrant workers are in low-income households — working in jobs that don’t provide access to unemployment benefits or paid sick leave.
“Immigrants are critical...