The child tax credit and a fight over which kids deserve support

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The Weekly Dispatch

Community-powered immigration news from the Bay Area.

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Welcome to El Tímpano’s Weekly Dispatch. I’m Erica Hellerstein, senior immigration, labor and economics reporter.

Last week, House Republicans narrowly passed a massive tax and spending bill that, if approved by the Senate, would allow the Trump administration to enact key parts of its policy agenda.

Among other things, the sweeping legislation, titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (not a joke) would extend the income tax cuts enacted in 2017, significantly reduce access to food stamps and Medicaid and pour historic levels of funding into immigration enforcement, including $45 billion to more than double the capacity of the nation’s detention system. The steep cuts to the social safety net and the $150 billion infusion into immigration enforcement have, understandably, dominated much of the media coverage.

But in today’s edition, I want to focus on a provision within the bill that’s received far less attention, but could have an outsized impact on Californians: the dismantling of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) for mixed-status families.

The fight over the CTC

Buried deep in the 1,000-plus pages of the bill is a proposed change to the Child Tax Credit that, if implemented, could render nearly a million children from mixed-status families in California ineligible for the benefit, including tens of thousands right here in the Bay Area. Advocates of the CTC say the proposed changes take aim at one of the country’s most effective anti-poverty programs, undercutting a crucial lifeline for millions of immigrant families nationwide.

Under current law, parents can reduce their tax bill by up to $2,000 per child through the CTC if they earn less than $400,000 as joint filers, or $200,000 individually. Most relevant to the Trump administration, however, is that U.S. citizen children are eligible for the credit even if their parents lack a Social Security number. This policy has allowed children from mixed-status families, including those with undocumented parents, to access the benefit.

The House bill would change that. As part of its broader immigration crackdown, the administration has sought to restrict citizen children’s access to safety net programs if their parents are undocumented. The legislation would add a new requirement prohibiting parents without Social Security numbers from claiming the CTC, even if their children are citizens. According to the Center for Migration Studies, this change would disqualify the families of 4.5 million citizen and legal permanent resident children nationwide from claiming the credit.

And here I will sound like a broken record, because with this revision, once again, California stands to be the most affected. The state is home to the largest number of children in the U.S who would lose CTC eligibility if the House bill passes. Nearly one million children in the state would lose access to the benefit under the House bill.

In the Bay Area alone, at least 42,000 children would become ineligible for the credit. The most affected congressional districts are the 14th and 17th, both of which include parts of the East Bay. An estimated 20,000 children in the 14th District (which includes Alameda County) and 22,000 in the 17th (covering parts of Alameda and Santa Clara counties) stand to be disqualified.

A blow to anti-poverty efforts

Proponents of the CTC worry that excluding mixed-status families from the credit could lead to higher child poverty rates and worse health and educational outcomes. Research has shown that tax credits for low-income families help reduce food poverty and food insecurity, improve academic performance, and narrow racial income disparities.

Kelly Batson, Chief Community Impact Officer for United Way Bay Area, points to California’s experience after Congress temporarily expanded the CTC to up to $3,600 per child in 2021: The state’s child poverty rate dropped by more than 40%. When the expansion expired the following year, child poverty increased sharply. In a high-cost region like the Bay Area, Batson continued, where a family of four must earn around $134,000 just to meet their basic needs, tax credits can provide crucial relief for low-income households, including immigrant families who may already have limited access to federal safety net programs. 

These changes to the CTC come on top of a range of proposed state and federal policies that would reduce immigrant and mixed status families’ access to safety net programs. That includes proposed federal cuts to food stamps and Medicaid, as well as the potential rollback of California’s Medi-Cal expansion to undocumented immigrants. Some of these efforts would also affect the citizen children of parents without legal status.

If mixed-status families lose access to the tax credit, Batson explained, “people are going to miss out on a huge benefit that’s helping them have better infant and maternal health, and better academic and lifetime earnings outcomes. This isn’t just a decision for today. This is a decision for the lifetime of these families.”

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and see you next week.

Ear to the Ground

El Tímpano’s text messaging (SMS) service reaches 5,700 Spanish-speaking immigrants across the Bay Area. Many of them are parents who often text seeking information about safety net programs and resources for their young children. Here are a few responses from them:

How can I enroll my child in school? I don’t have housing at the moment, or a job, and they ask me for a utility bill or insurance bill and I don’t have any of those things.

¿Cómo puedo inscribir a mi hijo en la escuela? No cuento con una vivienda por ahora, ni trabajo, y me piden recibo de luz y aseguranza, y no cuento con nada de eso. 

–San Pablo resident 

I would like guidance about organizations that provide us with baby diapers as I have a three month old baby.

Me gustaría orientación de organizaciones que nos brinden pañales para bebés ya que tengo un bebé de tres meses.

–Oakland resident 

Where can I find activities in Hayward for children with autism?

¿Dónde puedo encontrar actividades en Hayward para niños con autismo?

–San Leandro resident 

• The Bay Area roots of the sanctuary movement. Under the Trump administration, Bay Area sanctuary cities have come under attack. This analysis, by two political science professors who have studied sanctuary cities for more than a decade, offers a clear-eyed and historic look at the sanctuary polices that have become a lightning rod under Trump 2.0. The sanctuary movement, which was founded in California, has deep roots in the Bay Area. In 1985, the cities of San Francisco and Berkeley enacted versions of what we now consider sanctuary city policy, laying the groundwork for hundreds of ordinances nationwide that limit local jurisdictions’ cooperation with immigration enforcement. While these policies have become a persistent source of frustration among immigration officials, the researchers argue that they do not violate federal law.

• School districts across the country saw a dip in student attendance after Trump’s inauguration. According to the Associated Press, students in school districts in states ranging from Idaho to Texas stopped showing up to school in the weeks after Trump’s inauguration. While attendance in some cases has rebounded, districts continue to see declines in attendance in the aftermath of immigration enforcement or even rumors of ICE raids. “In Denver, 3,323 students have withdrawn from school through mid-April – an increase of 686 compared with the same period last year,” the AP reports. 

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