In their bipartisan zeal to quickly cut a deal on an economic stimulus bill, GOP lawmakers overlooked something that will certainly inflame the conservative base _ illegal immigrants could receive a tax rebate check from the government.
But late Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee was scrambling to fix the problem _ contained in the House bill _ by only allowing taxpayers using legitimate Social Security numbers to receive rebates.
The text of the House passed bill contains language making "non resident aliens" _ illegal immigrants _ ineligible for the tax rebates. But every year, hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants use individual taxpayer identification numbers, known as ITINs, to file income tax returns with the IRS. These ID numbers are used instead of Social Security numbers. There are no exact statistics for how many illegal immigrants file tax returns, but this New York Times story from last year details the significant increase in use of ITINs. This story also lays out the issue.
Immigration advocates point out that many legal immigrants use ITINs, so it would be impossible to tell who is legal and who is not from those who use these IDs. The Senate version of the bill would prohibit use of ITINs, meaning some legal immigrants would not receive rebates.
This whole process bugs me. Minority Leader John Boehner was in a press conference with Nancy Pelosi when he said something along the lines of "taxpayers will soon get a check from the federal government". While that is technically correct, I would hope a conservative would phrase it differently. He should have said "the federal government will soon be returning some of your hard earned money to you".
We'll never win the ideological battle if we surrender the language to the Dems.
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