Senators Warren, Hirono, Murray, & Colleagues to McConnell: Immigrants Are Essential and Deserve Support in Coronavirus Relief Legislation

The following is a media release from Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office. She was elected by voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to serve the state in Washington DC in the US Senate. She is a Democrat.

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WASHINGTON DC – United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Health, Education, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, joined Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawai’i), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and 24 of their colleagues in sending a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urging him to support tax-paying immigrant families who have Individual Tax Identification Numbers (ITIN) by ensuring they have access to economic relief payments provided in the CARES Act and any future coronavirus relief package.

An estimated 20 million immigrants work in essential industries. These immigrants, particularly undocumented workers, are disproportionately represented on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many of these immigrant workers and their families face additional vulnerabilities during this public health and economic crisis due to a lack of health insurance coverage and lower incomes.

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“Therefore, it is critical that Congress ensures that immigrants who pay taxes, including frontline workers, are able to access the vital coronavirus economic relief measure in the CARES Act that was intended to help ensure that families are able to put food on their tables and keep a roof over their heads. As immigrant workers in hospitals, meat processing plants, farms, grocery stores, and elsewhere endure the hardships of this pandemic to provide for our most basic needs, we ask that you extend the coronavirus cash assistance Congress provided to include immigrant families who file taxes with an ITIN,” wrote the senators. 

The senators continued, “No one should be denied critical economic relief benefits they would otherwise be entitled to simply because they are part of a mixed-status family.” 

In April, Senator Warren cosponsored the Coronavirus Immigrant Families Protection Act (S. 3609), legislation that would provide Medicaid coverage of COVID-19-related services to everyone, regardless of immigration status, and extend cash relief benefits to people with ITINs.

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That same month, Senator Warren joined Senator Hirono and Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-Calif.) in writing to members of Congressional leadership to call for an inclusive COVID-19 relief package that ensures that urgently-needed COVID-19 testing and medical care and relief benefits are accessible by all communities, regardless of limited English proficiency or immigration status.

Senator Warren also joined Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), to call on Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to allow Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students to access emergency financial aid grant funding secured in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.