Tax Equality for Immigrants: The Indispensable Ingredient for Remedying Child Poverty in the United States (JMHS)

Executive Summary Both at the federal and state levels, tax credits have proved effective policy instruments to combat poverty, and they are at the heart of President Biden’s massive initiative on childhood poverty. However, about one of every five children suffering poverty in the United States has an unauthorized immigrant parent and thus little or no access to tax credits. That is nearly two million children, and 85 percent of them are US citizens. Achieving historic reductions in childhood poverty thus will be impossible without remedying the eligibility exclusions and bureaucratic impediments that unauthorized immigrants face in the US tax system.

To read the complete executive summary written by Suro & Finding (2021) and published in the Journal on Migration and Human Security and as featured on the Center for Migration Studies website, click here.