2.4M Texas immigrants frozen out of $1,200 stimulus payments.

Immigrants, even citizens, left out of federal relief checks

WASHINGTON — As many as 2.4 million Texans didn’t get stimulus checks the federal government cut earlier this year because they are either immigrants or live with them, one way immigrants — even U.S. citizens — have been left out as Congress has poured trillions into coronavirus relief efforts.

The stimulus checks did not go to mixed-status families, meaning as many as 940,000 Texans who otherwise would have been eligible for the checks — many of them citizens — didn't get a check because they are either married to a person who came to the U.S. without legal authorization, or have parents who did, according to estimates by the Migration Policy Institute.

“President Trump and Senate Republicans left out millions of American citizens from receiving stimulus checks simply because they are married to an immigrant — this discrimination is a grave injustice,” said U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “Every hard-working, tax-paying Texan deserves economic relief during the coronavirus crisis.”

Democrats in Congress want to start sending them checks soon, part of a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package the House is set to vote on as soon as Friday — a proposal that the Texas Republican Party on Thursday called “outrageous,” saying “Democrats are jumping at every opportunity to push through a ludicrous list of far-left ideas.”

On Thursday, President Donald Trump threatened to veto the bill, in part because it would send payments to “illegal aliens” and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted it in a speech on the Senate floor.

“Another round of checks for illegal immigrants. Can you believe it?” McConnell said. “We forgot to have the Treasury Department send money to people here illegally. My goodness, what an oversight. Thank goodness Democrats are on the case.”

The checks are just one of the ways immigrants have been cut out of the federal response to the coronavirus, which has totaled some $2.5 trillion so far. Many immigrants can’t access unemployment benefits or Medicaid, even as 1.6 million Texans have lost their jobs and employer-provided health care during the pandemic, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“This has become more than a political issue as I see it. We are now getting into the area of human rights,” U.S. Rep. Al Green, a Houston Democrat, said. “People should not be punished because they don’t happen to have citizenship at a time when we have a pandemic that is impact