Politico / Lou Dobbs

In their bipartisan zeal to quickly cut a deal on an economic stimulus bill, GOP lawmakers overlooked something that will certainly inflame the conservative base _ illegal immigrants could receive a tax rebate check from the government.

But late Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee was scrambling to fix the problem _ contained in the House bill _ by only allowing taxpayers using legitimate Social Security numbers to receive rebates.

The text of the House passed bill contains language making “non resident aliens” _ illegal immigrants _ ineligible for the tax rebates. But every year, hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants use individual taxpayer identification numbers, known as ITINs, to file income tax returns with the IRS. These ID numbers are used instead of Social Security numbers. There are no exact statistics for how many illegal immigrants file tax returns, but this New York Times story from last year details the significant increase in use of ITINs.  This story also lays out the issue…

Click here to read entire story