Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada argues that Republicans (and some Democrats) are wrongfully targeting children in working-class Latino families, most of whom are natural born citizens of the United States. As the average Latino household earns about $21,000 a year, denying them access to the child tax credit – with average refund check of $1800 – can prove detrimental to families straddling the poverty line ($22,113 for a family of four).
Republicans and fiscally-conservative Democrats point to the estimated $10 billion that could be saved over the next decade.
“Illegal immigrants bilked $4.2 billion from the U.S. taxpayers [in 2010],” Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) said during the debate over payroll tax cut in December. “I think that it’s time that we fixed it.”
A proposed compromise suggests that filers claiming the child tax credit be required to fill in the Social Security number of each child, instead of asking for the parent’s Social Security number.
Read more at the Huffington Post.
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