Feds Sued for Excluding Americans With Immigrant Spouses from Stimulus Payments

April 28, 2020

A class action lawsuit has been filed in Illinois federal court naming defendants including President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin by a US citizen who alleges that he was unlawfully denied a stimulus payment because he is married to an immigrant. The plaintiff claims that the federal government’s restriction allowing only married couples who both have valid Social Security numbers to receive payments is a form of discrimination and violates the US Constitution.

At the end of March, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which provides payments of $1,200 to single taxpayers and $2,400 to married taxpayers earning below certain threshold amounts. Because the plaintiff in this case is married to an immigrant spouse who uses an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, he did not qualify for a stimulus check. The lawsuit seeks, among other things, a declaratory judgment that the relevant CARES Act provision in this case is subject to strict scrutiny, and that as applied to the plaintiff, it violates his constitutional and statutory rights.

Additional Reading

Trump sued for blocking stimulus checks to Americans married to immigrants, CBS News, April 27, 2020

Complaint, Doe v. Trump, et al., filed April 24, 2020, via Justia Dockets

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