More than a million Americans won’t get stimulus money because they married immigrants

More than one million Americans won’t get a coronavirus stimulus check because they’re married to immigrants who don’t have Social Security numbers, media outlets reported.

Under the CARES Act, individuals earning up to $75,000 will get $1,200, plus $500 for dependents under the age of 17.

But families that file taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which the IRS gives to workers who don’t have Social Security Numbers, won’t get a stimulus check unless a spouse is part of the U.S. Armed Forces, The Los Angeles Times reported. That means that if you’re a U.S. citizen but file taxes jointly with a spouse who doesn’t have a Social Security number, you also won’t get a payment.

“It’s just fundamentally unfair, and it’s really, really targeted to hurt,” Randall Emery, president of American Families United, a nonprofit that advocates for U.S. citizens married to immigrants, told The Los Angeles Times. “It’s such a basic thing that the government would protect its own citizens and the government is really abandoning U.S. citizens when they need help the most. A lot of people really need this just to survive.”

About 1.2 million immigrants who don’t have legal status are married to U.S. citizens, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Guadalupe Diaz, who has a Social Security number, filed jointly in 2018 with her husband who has an ITIN number, CBS58 reported.

“We are U.S. citizens and it’s like we’re being discriminated against because of who we fell in love with and who we married,” Diaz told the station.