Sen. Romney's plan to boost families would leave out these children

SALT LAKE CITY — Families could get up to $350 a month per child under a proposal from Sen. Mitt Romney, but some families of mixed immigration status will be left out.

Romney's Family Security Act 2.0, the second version of legislation he originally proposed last year, requires that each child and at least one of their parents have a Social Security number, meaning U.S. citizen children with undocumented parents as well as undocumented children will be left out. However, recipients don't have to be American citizens as long as they have a Social Security number, such as some Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients.

Laura Ruiz, an undocumented single mother in Utah County, says her family could use the payments. Ruiz has tried unsuccessfully to get legal residency in the past, leaving her with fewer options to support her two U.S. citizen sons, ages 8 and 10. She's turned to freelance Spanish interpretation but says it's not a stable income.

"I would like for my children to be able to have the same opportunities as the families that would have the extra income," Ruiz said, pointing to food, medical expenses, sports programs and extracurricular activities as examples of how she would use the monthly payments. "All the money would go to them. I don't want anything for myself."

Romney has said his proposal would decrease the economic burden of childrearing and incentivize Americans to have more children, calling it "pro-family, pro-life, and pro-marriage." Ruiz argued that being pro-life means not just fighting for rights for those in the womb but for anyone with basic needs.

"It's disappointing because knowing that Sen. Romney has gone against the establishment before — for example, when he voted to impeach (former President Donald) Trump — I was expecting him to take a similar stance," Ruiz said. "I encourage him to rethink the eligibility for undocumented families, because it's not a matter of Democrats against Republicans or a matter of religion, or what the scriptures say or anything like that; it's a basic human right that everybody should have."

Romney was not available for an interview and his office was unable to answer questions about whether the senator supports sending checks to families with U.S. citizen children and undocumented children and whether exceptions would be made for parents using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which the IRS issues to individuals who pay taxes but aren't eligible for a Social Security number.

The number of children left out of Romney's proposal could be in the millions. Data is usually collected on whether children live with at least one undocumented parent, making it difficult to parse out how many children in the U.S. have two undocumented parents. However, the Migration Policy Institute reported that 7% of the U.S. child population, or 5.5 million children, lived with at least one undocumented parent as of 2019. The majority, 86%, were citizens and another 13% were undocumented.

The nonprofit Comunidades Unidas is calling for Romney to change the eligibility rules in his proposal to include mixed-status families. The group says the Family Security Act falls short of the Child Tax Credit, which provided monthly cash payments of up to $300 per child before expiring in January.

Unlike Romney's proposal, the Child Tax Credit did not require parents to have a Social Security number as long as they had an ITIN. Critics of the Family Security Act 2.0 also say income requirements that decrease the payment amounts for families making less than $10,000 will also leave out children who could benefit the most.

Fany De Lucas, an immigrant rights mobilizer with Comunidades Unidas, said the mixed-status and undocumented families are among the families with the greatest need for the payments.

"If we go back to COVID times, they didn't even receive a stimulus check," De Lucas said, referring to a policy that barred mixed-status and undocumented families from receiving a stimulus check from the IRS. "So, a lot of our families are still trying to get out of that dump that COVID left them in."

She added that the general consensus from the families she works with has been disappointment. She also stressed the positive impact these families have on a community — from doing hard labor like snow plowing and construction to restocking grocery stores.

"A lot of families could really use that to go towards their rent, or even just groceries themselves. It's not like a new phone or a new car; it's the basic necessities," De Lucas said. "That's where the disappointment comes from, because it's like this money is going to help you survive."

According to Angie De La Cruz, 18, those payments could make a difference well beyond childhood. Her parents immigrated to Utah from Peru about 25 years ago. She and her older sister were born in the U.S. and her parents were both undocumented.

"I grew up to seeing you two very hardworking, working-class parents that provided everything that my sister and I needed — but there was also a lot of stress and anxiety that came with being in that type of situation," De La Cruz said. "I grew up in a pretty anxious state."

Part of that stress came from the fear of being separated from her family, but another part was associated with financial worries. Like many undocumented workers, De La Cruz's parents had limited job options because of their immigration status. Her dad worked in construction and her mother cleaned laundromats.

Her parents have recently received work permits and are in the process of getting green cards. But the trauma of growing up in a mixed-status family is something that sticks with De La Cruz to this day, she said. Although her age means her parents couldn't apply for Romney's proposed payments, she hopes sharing her story — particularly when many undocumented families are scared to openly talk about their status — will help others understand the potential the Family Security Act has to affect mixed-status families.

"I can say with certainty that it would impact children the most," she said. "Having lived the experiences that I've had, and having struggled with mental health and anxiety, it's not something that I want other children to go through."

"The goal of the family Security Act is to help American families who are experiencing extraordinary amounts of financial stress, and I really focused on that American families part because to me, I would consider my family to be an American family," De La Cruz continued. "And I know a lot of other families consider themselves to be American families even if they didn't grow up here or don't have a document that states that status."

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