Christina Segundo is angry. She’s a U.S. citizen, raising four children in Fort Worth with her husband. Friends around her are receiving $1,200 or more under the government’s colossal stimulus effort.

But Segundo gets nothing. She and her immigrant husband file taxes jointly and he uses a federal ITIN, an individual taxpayer identification number. Such couples have been surgically excluded from help.

Millions of U.S. citizens won’t get federal stimulus assistance under the $2 trillion pandemic aid package because there are also unauthorized immigrants in their families. The CARES Act excludes unauthorized immigrants and most U.S. citizens or legal immigrant spouses who file taxes jointly with unauthorized immigrants or immigrants without a Social Security number, making an exception for military families.

Some argue that in a time of dire need, the government should look out for its U.S. citizens first.

“They were working in the country illegally in the first place, and therefore you should not be given a check for losing a job that you were illegally holding,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the immigration-restrictionist Federation for American Immigration Reform.

But Mehlman was not aware that some U.S. citizens were being barred from assistance in an attempt to carve out unauthorized immigrants from the aid.

“People who are U.S. citizens are entitled to all the benefits that they qualify for, but that should not extend to family members who are in the country illegally,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, defended those in mixed-status families and said the next coronavirus response package from Congress should include a “legislative fix” for mixed-status families with legal permanent residents with the taxpayer identification numbers.

“Many essential workers are Latinos and immigrants, hardworking people who love this nation and will do anything to serve her people,” Castro said. “And now ordinary folks are recognizing their extraordinary contributions and understand the injustice, the unfairness, and the unconscionable decision to exclude millions of working families from receiving stimulus checks for no good reason.”

Americans first

While many U.S. citizens won’t get checks, ironically, many legal immigrants will. Legal permanent residents who have Social Security numbers and file taxes will get stimulus checks — as long as they don’t have someone in the residence who files their taxes under an ITIN. If the eligible adult has U.S. citizen children, each dependent is eligible for $500 each, on top of each eligible parent receiving $1,200.

There were about 12 million immigrants with legal permanent status in 2107, according to the Pew Research Center.

But so-called mixed-status families with U.S. citizens and unauthorized immigrants, or immigrants in the legalization process but without Social Security cards yet, get nothing.

This includes families where there are U.S. citizen children of unauthorized immigrants.

“Certainly over 10 million people are affected and that is a big number who are locked out of these federal relief efforts,” including about 4.1 million U.S.-born children who live with at least one parent who is unauthorized to be in the U.S., said Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst for the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute.

Immigrants, she said, are already overrepresented in industries with big layoffs, like construction and restaurants. “And they are people who have come into this crisis with less income and less access to the safety net,” she said. “They are a particularly vulnerable population.”

Jacob Monty, an immigration attorney active in Republican Party politics, says the exclusion of mixed-status families and authorized immigrants isn’t surprising.

“This administration has been hostile to immigrants from the beginning. It’s continuing that, and it’s not abating even in the face of a pandemic,” Monty said.

‘Out in the dust’

Segundo, a 39-year-old UPS package handler born in Indiana, decided to stop working after hearing rumors of infected colleagues.

“I refuse to bring something home to my kids and give it to them,” said Segundo, who has been home-schooling her children, including one with autism.

Now her husband, a construction worker, is the only one earning income. And his work has been cut from about 52 hours a week to 20 hours.

They’re behind on rent. Last weekend, the couple had to borrow money from a friend to buy their 11-year-old daughter a birthday cake.

“We're flat broke,” Segundo said. “Everybody else is like, ‘Oh, we're gonna get this money. We're going to be able to pay our bills.’ And we're just kind of like, we're over here. We don't know what's gonna happen.”

Christina Segundo and her four children (left to right) Isabella (6), Tarianna (11), Braylen (8) and Mia (5), at their home in Fort Worth, Texas on Tuesday, April 14, 2020. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)

Segundo didn’t realize she had been left out of the stimulus package until she heard about the Leave No Taxpayer Behind Act, a bill introduced by Democratic U.S. representatives from California and Arizona to amend the CARES Act to include taxpayers with ITINs.

“I thought, ‘OK, well, he may not qualify, but at least we do, so we'll have something,” she said. “And I started looking into it to see, and I found out that a lot of the people in the House of Representatives were trying to fight for mixed-status families.”

Now Segundo has joined that fight. She’s been calling members of Congress, emailing President Donald Trump and created a Facebook group called Mixed Status Families United for families in similar situations.

“To totally exclude that range of taxpayers out is just unfair, especially children,” she said.

Segundo said she is looking to see if she can file a class-action lawsuit on the basis of discrimination.

But for now, the only option for mixed-status families is to file their 2019 taxes separately, said Rebecca Eisenbrey, an employment attorney at the Equal Justice Center.

If they have already filed, they’re out of luck.

Segundo filed with her husband long before the deadline. Now she feels punished for being transparent about their mixed status, rather than trying to use a fake Social Security number like some people do. The couple has long hoped to fix his status, but they can’t afford the legalization fees.

“We pay our taxes faithfully like everybody else does,” she said. “My husband's undocumented, but he tries to live the most lawful life he can while he's here. We tried to do what we can, but I mean, it kind of leaves us out in the dust.”

Enrique Mena, an authorized immigrant from Mexico living in Plano, also feels let down.

He has a Social Security number under his visa as a business liaison, but his wife can only get an ITIN under her permit to accompany him in the U.S. They rushed to do their taxes in February. He wanted to be "muy responsable,” or very responsible.

“I’m legally here,” he said. “I’m contributing to the American economy, paying my taxes. I have no wrong records or anything. I’m legally and lawfully here, so I was expecting to be helped like everyone else.”

They had a daughter, a U.S. citizen, in January, so they’re hoping to ride out Mena’s 40% pay cut for as long as possible. But if the Mexican company that employs him shuts down operations here, Mena said he will have to leave the U.S.

‘We really need it’

Lucia Garcia celebrated her U.S. citizenship in 2017 at a restaurant surrounded by her friends and family. The stay-at-home mother of seven children, all U.S. citizens, petitioned to get legal permanent residency for her Mexican immigrant husband. But that process is lengthy.

Her husband received his work permit first and only recently obtained his Social Security number. They have paid their federal taxes using an ITIN for years.

The stimulus check would be huge assistance for her big family, Garcia said. “We really need it. We live paycheck to paycheck.”

So, Garcia has an appointment with an attorney to see if they might get a needed stimulus check, too. At stake: $5,400.

Rosa, an unemployed housekeeper who didn’t want to give her surname because she lacks legal immigration status, said her family is struggling and the stimulus check is severely needed. Her husband has a Social Security number because he’s a legal permanent resident and her two children are U.S. citizens. But his construction work is drying up and her housekeeping duties were canceled.

Making it even more difficult for the Mexican immigrants has been the death of two relatives from COVID-19.

“It is sad,” Rosa said. "It is not just. We pay taxes and my children were born here.”