Josh and Jialing Bird were relieved when they found out the government was sending $1,200 relief checks to people as part of federal pandemic aid back in March.
As two soon-to-be graduates, they were about to lose their part-time jobs with Ensign College, and Josh Bird’s summer internship had already been canceled due to the virus.
“Getting that $2,400 would have helped us get through the summer,” he said. “We were just really worried about how we would do that otherwise.”
But only Josh received a $1,200 check. The Provo couple tried to find out why Jialing, who’s applying for a green card but pays taxes and has a Social Security number, wasn’t sent one. They said the information they found on the IRS website was confusing.
“Looking over it, it seems like we met the qualifications and I also had some other good friends who were international students and they were married and got it. … It just seemed like we should have gotten it,” Josh Bird said.
The Bird family was lucky in comparison. Many other families of mixed immigration status didn’t receive the aid. And some are worried, as Congress continues to debate another relief bill, that they may miss out on a second round of direct checks.
Under the CARES Act, passed in March, many of these families, including U.S. citizen spouses and children, were ineligible to receive relief checks because the law automatically disqualified anyone with an individual taxpayer identification number — issued by the IRS to those who aren’t eligible for a Social Security number — on their tax return.
Some noncitizens did get the money. Individuals with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, Temporary Protected Status and many asylum seekers, for example, have Social Security numbers and were eligible for stimulus payments. Families with undocumented immigrants who do not pay taxes with an individual taxpayer identification number would not have been denied a check either.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, about 107,000 Utahns did not receive relief money because of their immigration status or the status of someone in their family — 43,000 of those individuals were U.S. citizens or legal immigrants, such as green-card holders.
Jane Lopez, a BYU sociology professor who has studied mixed-status families, estimated that about 6% to 12% of Utah’s population wasn’t able to receive stimulus checks because of the immigration status of someone in their family.
She is one of them. Lopez’s husband is not yet a citizen and no one in her immediate family received the relief checks.
“It really makes me mad that I, as a U.S. citizen, and my U.S. citizen children didn’t receive any of this support just because we’re married to someone who’s not a U.S. citizen yet,” she said.
To understand how the CARES Act impacted mixed-status families, she said it’s crucial to look at the situation from both a financial and psychological standpoint.
On one hand, immigrants and immigrant families typically have lower family income and are in more volatile industries, Lopez said. Some are essential workers or have lost their jobs and don’t have access to unemployment benefits or other social safety nets available to citizens.
Without aid from the federal government, these families had to turn to local, state and private resources instead.
In addition to the financial repercussions, Lopez believes being left out of the CARES Act will also have a long-lasting psychological impact.
“It was a real direct attack,” Lopez said. “Most U.S. citizens have these pretty strong assumptions about what the country owes us and to just be told that, ‘Actually you don’t deserve this, you don’t deserve our support and you don’t deserve this help that your tax money was funding,’ is a real insult.”
She added that the silver lining is that this experience could become a unifying moment for mixed-status families and immigrants, a group that has usually been divided into the winners and losers of the U.S. immigration system. The winners, she said, typically have few incentives to advocate for the immigrant families who aren’t as lucky as themselves.
“But this was a case in which mixed-status families with a lot of different legal statuses and situations face a similar kind of inclusion,” Lopez said. “There’s a moment actually for unity, for us to act as a group to push back against the stigma and the punishments that we, as a society, want to mete out against immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants.”
She’s not hopeful, though, that mixed-status families will be included if Congress approves the second round of relief checks. “I don’t need this stimulus money for my husband, but I really would like it for the three U.S. citizens in our family and I wish that they would try to find a way to at least do that.”
Jialing Bird also expressed a desire for mixed-status families to be included in any upcoming emergency aid bills. “I feel kind of sad that I have the intent to immigrate here and I pay my taxes — I’m an honest resident,” she said. “I guess it would be really nice if they could include us.”
Congress continues to negotiate another emergency aid package and direct checks are a sticking point.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have both said lawmakers are close to a compromise — but Congress went into a rare weekend session to continue negotiating.
Arielle Mueller, a spokeswoman for Sen. Mitt Romney, said the senator has been “fighting for Congress to agree on providing targeted, emergency relief for those most in need before the end of the year.”
She pointed toward previous legislation sponsored by Romney to provide economic impact payments for families with children, including citizens whose spouses have a taxpayer identification number. That legislation includes a provision from Sen. Marco Rubio, which would amend the CARES Act to allow American citizens in mixed-status families to receive a stimulus check. It is not yet clear if this would be included in any compromise package.
There is some local aid for people who were left out of the CARES Act. Salt Lake City announced $1.1 million in rental assistance Thursday, which will be available to all city residents regardless of their immigration status.
Salt Lake City residents will also have access to $500 “Salt Laker Card” cash cards that can be used for food, rent, utilities and other essential household bills. The cards will be available to people who weren’t eligible for federal stimulus checks in the spring, including mixed-status families.
Those interested in accessing the aid or donating can find more information at raiseupslc.com.