Washington, D.C. – Last night, Congress passed a $900 billion stimulus plan. This plan would provide $600 in cash assistance to an additional 3.5 million people – mixed status families who were left out of funding from the previous COVID-19 package – the CARES Act.
This new stimulus will also provide retroactive relief to these families where at least one person in the family files taxes with a social security number. Left out of this plan are people who file taxes with an ITIN, which includes U.S. Citizen children of undocumented parents. In addition to this, the bill also contained $23 billion in taxpayer dollars to the deportation force of ICE and CBP, including $1.375 billion for border wall construction.
Sanaa Abrar, Advocacy Director of United We Dream Network, said:
“Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic over 318,000 people have died. Millions of people have lost their jobs, and are struggling to provide for themselves and their families. Earlier this year, undocumented people – including mixed status families – were completely shut out of financial relief. Congress has provided little to no relief for immigrants, including undocumented folks, despite the fact that many have been risking their lives as frontline workers to keep us fed, safe, and healthy. While the addition of over 3.5 million people receiving cash assistance is welcomed, it is not enough. Mitch McConnell and Republicans in Congress have continued to show their priorities lie with providing billions to corporations and for Trump’s racist wall than to meeting the needs of everyday working people. The incoming Biden-Harris administration needs to recognize that a pandemic that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, and infected millions of people – many of whom are Black and brown – should force us to reckon with the significant inadequacy of our government’s response. The Biden-Harris administration must act swiftly on a comprehensive COVID-19 recovery package that includes all immigrants regardless of status in financial assistance, and that doesn’t continue to allocate funding to DHS to deport and detain immigrants.”
