Immigrant Workers, Community, Faith and Labor Organizations Call for Disaster Relief Fund for Workers and Families Excluded from COVID-19 Relief

New Estimates Find that 125,000 Undocumented Workers Lost Job Due to COVID-19

Groups Call for State Stimulus for Undocumented Taxpayers and $600/week payments for undocumented workers ineligible for Unemployment

(New Jersey) – On Monday April 27, 2020, immigrant workers, community, faith and labor organizations hosted a virtual press conference to urge New Jersey to create a disaster relief fund. Immigrant workers left behind by relief efforts shared their stories. Organizational cosponsors include ACLU-NJ, AFSC, SEIU 32BJ Central Jersey DSA, Hudson County Central Labor Council, El Pueblo Unido of Atlantic City IFPTE Local 194, LUPE, New Labor, New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, Ironbound Community Corp, Faith in New Jersey, Make the Road New Jersey, and South Jersey DSA.

Immigrant organizations called on Governor Murphy and the New Jersey state legislature to create a disaster relief fund for excluded workers and families. This fund will provide income replacement for displaced immigrant workers, excluded from UI, and their families, and a stimulus payment for any taxpayers excluded from the federal stimulus. New Jersey’s half million undocumented immigrants and their 128,000 US citizen children have been left behind from federal stimulus payments and most relief, including unemployment insurance, despite working on the frontlines of COVID-19 relief and contributing more than their fair share to taxes.

The groups released this position paper on the Fund.

Program Basics:

This fund would provide income replacement for displaced immigrant workers, excluded from UI, and their families, and a stimulus payment for any taxpayers excluded from the federal stimulus.

• Flat rate weekly cash payments in the amount of $600 per week to each displaced worker – what a typical low wage worker receiving Unemployment Insurance receives at this moment.
• Stimulus payments to  ITIN tax filers and their families that were left behind from the federal stimulus: immigrant taxpayers and their U.S. citizen families must receive stimulus payments if our state will be able to socially distance and restart our economy.

At the same time, New Jersey Policy Perspective and Rutgers University released a policy paper that estimates more than 125,000 undocumented workers have lost their job during the COVID-19 crisis. None of these workers are eligible for stimulus payments or unemployment.

California and twelve cities across the United States have launched funds for immigrant workers and others excluded from federal relief.

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