The exclusion of some legal immigrants along with undocumented immigrants was deliberate. Coronavirus benefits were "limited to citizens and residents of the U.S. that are legally permitted to work here,” a Republican congressional aide said. The students, spouses and other legal residents who file with a taxpayer number can use it for “many different reasons related to having to pay U.S. tax” the aide explained, but not to work here.

Collectively, taxpayer-number-filers paid more than $13.7 billion in taxes in 2015, the most recent data publicly available, according to the American Immigration Council.

“These taxpayers work in critical sectors of our economy, like agriculture, and contribute greatly to our country,” said Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), who’s introduced a bill to extend eligibility to the excluded immigrants. By excluding these immigrants, he said, “we are placing some of our most vulnerable residents in grave danger.”

Manar Waheed, senior legislative and advocacy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the exclusion “a very deliberate carving out,” pointing out that the law permits military families to collect the stimulus checks--$1200 for individuals, $2400 for joint filers, and $500 for each child--even if they file taxes with a taxpayer number.

In last month’s negotiations over the stimulus bill, Democrats pushed Republicans to allow parents who file with taxpayer numbers, including undocumented workers, to claim payments on behalf of their citizen children, according to Sen. Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. “This arrangement has been used before in legislation every Republican senator supported,” Wyden said in an email. “Republicans refused to budge.”

Correa’s bill amending the stimulus to include taxpayer-number-filers faces strong opposition from immigration hawks, making it unlikely to clear the Republican-controlled Senate.