MPI Coronavirus Update
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July 1, 2020
Dear John,
The CARES Act passed by Congress in March provided one-time cash payments to help millions of Americans cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. But these payments of up to $1,200 per adult and $500 per child excluded not only unauthorized immigrants but anyone who files taxes with an unauthorized immigrant -- including U.S.-citizen spouses and children. To qualify for the pandemic relief, everyone listed on a tax return must have a valid Social Security Number (SSN). The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimated that this requirement excluded 15.4 million people from the stimulus, including 1.7 million U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents (also known as green-card holders) who are married to an unauthorized immigrant and 3.7 million children under age 18 who are U.S. citizens or green-card holders.
As Congress may consider providing yet more COVID-19 economic relief, a measure introduced by two Florida Republican lawmakers, Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, would extend these economic impact payments to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents with a valid SSN even if they file taxes with an unauthorized immigrant. As a result, MPI estimates the legislation could benefit 1.7 million spouses excluded from the CARES Act stimulus and 1.7 million of the 3.7 million children who were also left out.
Check out MPI's U.S. and state estimates, which we are releasing today, on who could benefit under the Rubio and Diaz-Balart legislation. Among the biggest recipient states: 896,000 spouses and children could receive payments in California, 609,000 in Texas, 240,000 in New York, 157,000 in Illinois, and 148,000 in Florida.
www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/datahub/State-LevelData-CARES-Excluded-NewMeasures-FINAL.xlsx.
The legislation would continue to exclude about 9.9 million unauthorized immigrants who lack valid SSNs. It also would exclude 2 million U.S.-citizen and legal permanent resident children who lack a parent with a valid SSN to claim a payment on their behalf. (Temporary Protected Status beneficiaries, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, and some asylum applicants already qualify for the payments because they have SSNs.)
And for a look at who was excluded under the CARES Act: www.migrationpolicy.org/content/mixed-status-families-ineligible-pandemic-stimulus-checks.
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ANALYSIS: Measuring Up? Using Monitoring and Evaluation to Make Good on the Promise of Refugee Sponsorship
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/monitoring-evaluation-refugee-sponsorship
Countries around the world have paused their refugee resettlement programs amid the pandemic and related travel restrictions and border closures. As uncertainty looms over whether and when countries hit hard by the COVID-19 outbreak will resume their protection programs, refugee sponsorship, which operates outside of government-set resettlement quotas in some countries, may become an even more critical lifeline for refugees in regions of displacement. This new MPI Europe brief examines refugee sponsorship programs, which first emerged in Canada during the 1980s and have since spread to Europe, Oceania, and the Americas. While long touted for their ability to provide refugees with a warm, supportive welcome, the programs lack ready evidence of their success. The authors recommend the creation of monitoring and evaluation systems to give decisionmakers the tools needed to assure the success of existing, new, or proposed sponsorship schemes and to make these programs more accountable to the public, refugees, and their sponsors. And the forced resettlement hiatus caused by the coronavirus offers a moment to do so.
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Explore all our Coronavirus resources: www.migrationpolicy.org/topics/coronavirus
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The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development, and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national, and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.
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