Some congressional Democrats voted for COVID relief bills that resulted in stimulus checks being sent to inmates — but so did some congressional Republicans. That law — like two previous COVID relief bills that were enacted in with overwhelming bipartisan support — did not block inmates from receiving economic impact payments intended to help individuals and families during the pandemic.
For example, in Florida, a TV ad from Sen. Demings voted for the bill in the House, and Warnock voted for it in the Senate. Stimulus payments were not sent to the more than 10 million immigrants estimated to be living in the U.
Instead, some Republicans raised concerns that a specific subset of those immigrants — those who overstayed a work visa and had a Social Security number — might get checks.
Immigration experts estimate that the majority of people living in the U. To receive the payments, individuals had to meet all of the eligibility requirements and had to have filed a or federal tax return, according to the IRS. Prior to the bill becoming law, three Republican senators proposed an amendment that would have denied the payments to incarcerated people, but it was defeated by the entire Democratic caucus in a vote along party lines.
Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. Relief payments would allow families to replace lost income and pay rent and put food on the table. It was not until over a month after then-President Donald Trump signed the CARES Act into law in March that the IRS issued guidance saying that payments should not go to inmates, and that any who had received money should return it. But that IRS stipulation was challenged in a class-action lawsuit , and a federal district judge ruled in October that eligible inmates were entitled to the payments because the bill that became law did not include language excluding those individuals.
