The Maryland General Assembly is mired in a partisan fight over whether to use one of the nation’s most effective anti-poverty tools to help immigrants who are not citizens.
Democrats are advancing a bill to extend cash payments for the working poor to include taxpayers without Social Security numbers, citing a moral obligation to help all needy households amid a pandemic that has disproportionately harmed the poor and people of color. Their efforts put the state near the forefront of a national debate over expanding the social safety net for immigrants in the absence of federal immigration changes.
“They are Marylanders. They are taxpayers — let me repeat this, they pay their taxes — and yet they have been cut out of nearly every federal benefit,” House Majority Leader Eric G. Leudtke (D-Montgomery) said. “We have the power to help them, and that is all that matters.”
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Erin Cox over at The Washington Post
