House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Friday said that the next coronavirus relief package should provide guaranteed monthly income to illegal immigrants with tax ID numbers if such a plan is included.
Reporter Nicholas Ballasy asked Pelosi during a conference call about allowing “mixed status” couples to receive stimulus payments in the CARES Act – the $2.2 trillion piece of legislation passed by congress that provided millions of taxpayers with stimulus checks and small businesses with loans that could be forgiven if the money went toward payroll.
As Ballasy, an independent journalist, reported, Pelosi earlier in the week had mentioned the inclusion of guaranteed minimum income for individuals in the next coronavirus relief package, which congress won’t work on until it comes back in session. As The Daily Wire’s Emily Zanotti previously reported, Democrats are refusing to come back to work on May 4th, the day Pelosi said legislating would resume.
When Pelosi made the statement about guaranteed minimum income, she didn’t specify an amount to be considered by congress. On the conference call Friday, Ballasy asked if that guaranteed income “would extend the guaranteed monthly income to illegal immigrants who file taxes with tax ID numbers.”
Pelosi responded: “I think the tax ID number is an entree for us in such an important way. It seems so simple. It seems so universal in how it has worked and that should be something that would apply.”
“Any way we go down the path it should apply, whether it’s direct payments, whether it’s participation in [Paycheck Protection Program] PPP. But they can participate in PPP, to my understanding. I don’t know if they have,” she added.
Pelosi went on to say the idea was “worthy of consideration.”
Let’s take up the hearing process to review it and what is the best way to do it,” she said. “But whatever we do, I think the tax number is an easy entree to many more people who deserve this, who should get this, who are being cut out now – in whatever it is we are putting out there.”
Non-citizens who don’t have a social security number but file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) weren’t able to receive stimulus checks in the first CARES Act. As The Daily Wire previously reported, Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) called on the federal government to include non-citizens who have an ITIN in the coronavirus relief package. He said during a Univision segment that “Millions of undocumented [immigrants] who work hard, and they’re outside on the streets now exposing themselves to getting sick, should also receive this kind of protection.”
“We must put meaningful resources into the pockets of those hardest hit by the coronavirus. However, the current economic stimulus proposal is limited to one-time cash payments that exclude immigrant taxpayers who do not have a social security number, which will have an immediate impact on their citizen children and spouses,” Espaillat said in a previous press release.
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