News > Immigration In The United States

URGENT: Tell Senators Vote NO on the Young Amendment Denying COVID Relief to Mixed-Status Families

Posted on Feb 04 2021

The Young Amendment threatens to deny the latest round of COVID relief payments to U.S. citizen spouses and children and legal permanent residents simply because they live in households that include people who file taxes with Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs.)

Call your Senators NOW and tell them to vote NO on the Young Amendment. The vote is expected on Thursday afternoon, February 4.

NONE of the stimulus payments enacted so far have included undocumented immigrants and NEITHER does the Biden plan.

The CARES Act unfairly included a “marriage penalty” and “family penalty” by excluding mixed-status immigrant families (families that include noncitizens) and immigrant workers who pay taxes from COVID-19 relief.  H.R. 133 fixed the exclusion for some mixed-status families in the second round of economic payments and provided a retroactive fix for the CARES Act exclusion, but 2.2 million US citizen children and lawfully present immigrants are STILL left out, as well as millions of workers and taxpayers who file taxes with ITINs. The Young Amendment wants to put these unfair penalties in the current COVID relief bill.

Over FIVE MILLION U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents live in mixed-status families that were denied relief under the CARES Act and would be denied again by the Young Amendment.  One in four children in the United States has at least one immigrant parent.  There is no way to deny payments to mixed-status families without harming U.S. citizens.

Even worse, this amendment also threatens to take away other tax credits such as the Child Tax Credit (CTC) from U.S. citizens and other lawfully present taxpayers. The Young Amendment would deny the credits to taxpayers with Social Security Numbers because their households include ITIN filers. The CTC already includes a Social Security Number requirement, but this amendment would punish U.S. citizen children simply for having immigrant family members.

Excluding families that include immigrants from COVID relief harms families, hurts our ability to stop the spread of COVID, and holds back our economic recovery.

Call your Senators NOW and tell them to vote NO on the Young Amendment. The vote is expected on Thursday afternoon, February 4.