Washington – More than 14.5 million people in the United States have been excluded from aid checks for the pandemic because one of its members is an undocumented immigrant, the Institute for Migration Policy (MPI) said Wednesday.
Last March, Congress approved a $ 1.23 trillion package of measures, which included sending checks for $ 1,200 to people with incomes below $ 75,000 annually, and who would have filed their taxes in 2018 and 2019.
For tax filing, US citizens and legal immigrants identify themselves with their Social Security number, while undocumented immigrants use the so-called Individual Tax Identification Number, or ITIN in English.
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The March legislation excluded individuals using ITINs, and their spouses if they jointly file taxes, from emergency payments, even if the spouse is a US citizen or legal immigrant with permanent residence (“green card” ).
According to MPI calculations, this exclusion left 9.8 million undocumented, 3.7 million children born in the United States or who are legal residents, and 1.7 million US citizens or undocumented immigrants whose spouses use the ITIN.
The five states with the largest populations of US citizens and legal residents excluded from federal aid for the pandemic are California, with 1.5 million people, Texas (940,000), New York (359,000), Illinois (244,000), and Florida (228,000 ).
If you add undocumented immigrants and the children of couples in which one of the adults filed taxes with the ITIN, the total number of people excluded from federal aid was 4.24 million in California; 2.35 million in Texas; 1.15 in New York; 721,000 in Illinois, and 686,000 in Florida, according to the MPI.
Over 60 Democratic representatives in the United States Congress have introduced a draft Immigrant Family Protection Act during the pandemic that includes the stipulation that taxpayers who use the ITIN instead of the Social Security number receive the benefits of any pandemic response legislation.
