Make the Road New Jersey Responds to Reports on President Trump’s Tax Returns

“Outrageous Injustice:” Undocumented Immigrants in NJ Pay $1B More in Taxes than the President, But Are Excluded from Aid; NJ Must Fund Immigrant Families  

(Sept 27, 2020: Elizabeth, NJ):  In response to reports in the New York Times that President Trump has paid no personal federal income taxes in ten of the past fifteen years and only $750 in 2016, Guilibaldo Delgado, member of immigrant organization Make the Road New Jersey issued the followng statement on behalf of the organization:

“Today it’s crystal clear: undocumented immigrants in New Jersey pay more in taxes than the President of the United States: we pay $1 billion in federal taxes and $600 million each year in state and local taxes in New Jersey. Yet six months into the pandemic, families like mine have received nothing in aid. This is a moment for our state to take action. We cannnot leave a half million New Jerseyans behind. It’s time for New Jersey to fund excluded workers and our families. Our state must remedy this outrageous injustice.”

In New Jersey, about a half million undocumented immigrants and  262,527 U.S. citizens who live with an immediate undocumented family member, have been left behind by aid under the CARES Act. Undocumented immigrants are also ineligible for unemployment insurance, pandemic unemployment insurance, SNAP and TANF. Immigrant groups have called on the Governor and the state legislature to create a COVID relief program that provides income replacement to workers and their families who have been excluded from federal and other aid, to include $600 weekly payments for excluded workers who have lost their jobs and stimulus-style payments to undocumented immigrants who pay taxes but were not permitted to obtain federal stimulus payments under the CARES Act. Pending legislation S2480/A4171 would provide one time payments to some undocumented tax filers in New Jersey. This legislation currently has bipartisan support in the state legislature and 17 co-sponsors in the Senate and nearly as many in the Assembly. Recently, the Star Ledger editorial board endorsed the legislation, calling it a “reasonable first step” to meet the vast need.