House Democrats Clamor for Illegal Alien Relief

By Preston Huennekens | FAIR Take | April  2020

Congressional leaders have already started planning for Phase IV legislation to address the economic fallout from the coronavirus. The CARES Act — the Phase III stimulus — was a $2.2 trillion stimulus that gives American citizens and certain legal immigrants up to $1,200 in direct individual checks. The CARES Act excluded illegal aliens from receiving these payments. Now, House Democrats want to include them in the next round of legislation.

Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) introduced H.R. 6438, the No Taxpayer Left Behind Act. This bill would allow illegal aliens to earn individual stimulus checks that the stimulus package provides for American citizens and legal immigrants with Social Security numbers (SSNs). The CARES Act stipulated that individuals can only use SSNs to prove their eligibility, and not Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN). Some illegal aliens use ITINs to pay federal income taxes and to claim tax credits. In the bill’s announcement press release, Rep. Correa states that “every individual taxpayer, irrespective of citizenship status, needs government assistance now.” Of course, hundreds of thousands of immigrants – who are not American citizens – will already receive checks from the government.

Rep. Correa has maintained an active presence throughout the virus crisis. Before Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) introduced her counter to the Senate’s Phase III stimulus legislation, Rep. Correa demanded that the stimulus include full legalization for DACA recipients – an outlandish proposal to include in a must-spend economic stimulus. H.R. 6438 would amount to an economic amnesty, whereby the federal government would send direct checks to illegal aliens.

Fellow progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) introduced the Recovery Rebates Improvement Act. This bill is similar to Rep. Correa’s bill, although it specifically targets the status of mixed-status families (i.e. illegal alien parents with citizen children) who are not covered under the CARES Act. Rep. Omar’s bill will ensure that these mixed-status families receive recovery rebates, again rewarding illegal aliens with an economic amnesty. Focusing her efforts on the Phase IV stimulus, Rep. Omar noted in a press release that “comprehensive legislation is needed in the next package to ensure that all noncitizens, whether holding a SSN or not, can access these relief payments.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced the Automatic BOOST to Communities Act which would immediately provide a U.S. Debit Card pre-loaded with $2000 to every person in America. Each card would have $1,000 monthly until one year after the end of the Coronavirus crisis. Importantly, illegal aliens would qualify for these benefits. Incredibly, this would even include long-term tourists who stay in the U.S. for longer than three months. In line with her colleagues, Rep. Tlaib’s bill will have the federal government pay illegal aliens for months on end — the ultimate economic amnesty for illegal aliens.

These three bills illustrate that House Democrats want to address the status of illegal aliens in the Phase IV coronavirus stimulus legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) indicated this week that they want illegal aliens included in the next stimulus package. Text of the House’s initial bill is far from release, but may well include a massive economic amnesty for illegal aliens. It will be up to the Senate and majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to keep this language out of the final bill that makes it to the president’s desk.