Colorado To Extend Unemployment Benefits to Undocumented Immigrants

Following Denver’s lead, Colorado will become the first state to pay unemployment benefits to undocumented immigrants — a new front in the larger fight to extend monetary benefits and voting rights to those who are in the country illegally.

The Left Behind Workers Fund was a Denver pilot program that paid out unemployment benefits to individuals regardless of immigration status during the Covid pandemic, as undocumented immigrants were not eligible for federal benefits.

The city’s mayor, Michael Hancock, announced the program in 2020. “Unlike the federal government, we will not leave some of our friends, families and neighbors behind. We will support all members of our community,” he said in a statement.

Colorado is now moving forward with a similar program statewide, called the Benefit Recovery Fund. Last year, the legislature and Governor Polis approved a $600 million grant that would replenish the unemployment benefits trust fund, and included in the bill was a provision allowing undocumented immigrants to receive the money.

The bill has been criticized by Republicans in the state legislature. A state senator whom Colorado Public Radio called one of the chamber’s “most moderate members,” Don Coram, said Coloradans are already struggling financially and shouldn’t be burdened with covering unemployment benefits for undocumented immigrants.

“Let's take care of the people right now that need the benefits rather than import more,” Mr. Coram told CPR. He said his own naturalized constituents are having trouble receiving unemployment benefits.

“I talked to a lady today, she hasn’t got her checks she’s due. She’s worried that her car is going to be repossessed. She can’t pay the rent, and she doesn’t have groceries. So let’s fix those problems first,” he said.

The California and New York legislatures are currently considering similar expansions of unemployment benefits.

The liberal Century Foundation praised the Colorado program for providing what could amount to “economic stability” to undocumented workers. Federal unemployment programs “slammed the door on immigrants without work authorization at the very moment when so many members of the public were applauding in the streets,” the foundation wrote in a blog post.

The authors said it is especially important to expand these programs for undocumented workers who “continued through the height of the pandemic to make deliveries, stock grocery stores, and care for people who were sick.”

The program will be administered by the online payment firm AidKit, which specializes in unemployment benefits and community grants. The director of Colorado’s Office of New Americans, Dee Daniels, praised the firm in a statement released by AidKit.

“Undocumented workers play such a critical role in our community and our economy. The pandemic made it clear that without a safety net in place, the whole community suffers,” Ms. Daniels said. “I look forward to working with AidKit to create an accessible, effective and dignified Fund — one that can serve Coloradans for generations to come and serve as a model for the rest of the country.”

At the state and local level, voters are supporting expanded rights for undocumented immigrants, something advocates have described as equitable and inclusive.

Washington, D.C., lawmakers passed a measure to allow undocumented immigrants to vote in local elections, which is being challenged in Congress. New York City also implemented non-citizen voting in municipal elections last year, but the measure was struck down in court.

Last year, Arizona voters approved a measure that allows undocumented students to attend state universities at the same rate that in-state citizens pay. Before that ballot measure, undocumented immigrants had to pay 50 percent more than their American peers.

In the last three years, Virginia and Massachusetts approved legislation that allows undocumented immigrants to receive state driver’s licenses. Connecticut now pays for 100 percent of Medicaid coverage for undocumented pregnant women and new mothers.

https://www.nysun.com/article/colorado-to-extend-unemployment-benefits-to-undocumented-immigrants

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