KEY POINTS

  • Mixed-status families may receive the third round of stimulus checks
  • Mixed-status households were ineligible to receive the first and second round of payments
  • The House is expected to vote on Biden's $1.9 trillion relief bill next week

President Joe Biden’s $19 trillion coronavirus relief plan may also provide mixed-status families with $1,400 stimulus checks.

On Jan. 15, Biden unveiled a proposal for a $19 trillion economic relief package with provisions for a third round of payments to millions of American individuals and families, including mixed-status households.

Mixed-status families are households whose members have different citizenship or immigration classifications. These can be families in which a spouse is a U.S. citizen while the other isn’t, or neither parents are U.S. citizens but the child is a U.S.-born citizen, according to the National Immigration Law Center.

In the first round of stimulus checks, the government deemed mixed-status households ineligible to receive payments.

In December, mixed-status families were eligible to receive the second round of checks amounting to $600. However, one member needed to have a Social Security number to qualify. Mixed-status households with members who only had an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, instead of a Social Security number, were not given $600 checks.

In August, the National Immigration Forum estimated that of the 16.2 million people in mixed-status families, only 1.8 million received payments from the first round of checks.

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan is expected to be brought to vote in the House of Representatives next week. If the House approves the bill, it would then be sent to the Senate, where Republicans are expected to push back on the package’s large price tag.

Several economists, including chief political economist for Goldman Sachs Alec Phillips, said Americans would likely receive the third round of stimulus payments by late-March, considering the bill passes Congress by mid-March.

Heights Securities analyst Hunter Hammond estimated that lawmakers will pass a scaled-down package after Biden had signaled that he is willing to alter the package to provide targeted relief.

"There's legitimate reason for people to say: 'Do you have the lines drawn the exact right way? Should it go to anybody making over X number of dollars or why?' Biden said at a press conference on Monday. "I'm open to negotiate those things."

US President Joe Biden
Speaking after mass arrests of people demonstrating across Russia this weekend against President Vladimir Putin and the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, US President Joe Biden said he was "very concerned" AFP / JIM WATSON