Far-Right Republicans Tie Themselves In Knots Over Child Tax Credit

WASHINGTON Far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives are speaking out against a bipartisan bill expanding the child tax credit because it could benefit undocumented immigrants. 

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.) said Tuesday that he opposes the tax bill and even claimed the proposed policy would encourage migrants to come to the U.S. 

Im not going to support child tax credits going to illegals, Good told reporters. I think thats incentivizing this illegal invasion.

The bill would not actually expand eligibility for any tax benefit to immigrants, however. The proposal would only boost benefits for families that already qualify for the child tax credit, which requires children to have Social Security numbers for their families to be eligible. 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who crafted the tax package with Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), has been furiously pushing back against his own GOP colleagues since last week. 

On Tuesday, Smith called their gripes completely false.

Theres very few items in the tax code that require a Social security number, Smith told HuffPost. You have to have a Social Security number as a child in order to get it, so its completely not true.

Smith noted that Republicans themselves added the Social Security requirement for the child tax credit in their 2017 tax reform law, which expanded the value of the credit by a much larger amount than the Smith-Wyden proposal. 

Its the same language that was in Trumps tax cuts of 2017! Smith said.

Asked if he favored undoing the changes Republicans made in 2017, Good simply noted that he hadnt yet been elected to Congress. (Good first came to Capitol Hill in 2021.)

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday praised the new tax bill which combines the $30 billion CTC expansion with an equivalent expansion of tax breaks for corporate America but Johnson stopped short of saying outright that he would vote for it or that it would get a vote on the House floor this week. Republican leadership  previously told lawmakers that the measure might receive a vote. 

The bill would likely pass the House by an overwhelming bipartisan margin, but Johnson could face backlash from Freedom Caucus members who generally oppose passing legislation with Democratic votes. A bipartisan vote is what led to the downfall of Johnsons predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). 

The immigration objection to an essentially unrelated tax bill comes as House Republicans fulminate against a possible immigration deal brokered between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. Former president Donald Trump has demanded Republicans kill the deal so he can continue campaigning on immigration and supposedly deliver policy solutions as president. 

Another Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), acknowledged that Republicans added the Social Security requirement for the child tax credit in 2017, but said the situation is different now since millions of additional undocumented immigrants have entered the country. 

Norman said it didnt matter if the children of undocumented immigrants were born in the U.S. and are therefore U.S. citizens. 

The parent shouldnt get it because the child cant spend it, it goes to the parents, Norman said. 

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said he liked the business tax cuts in the bill but said his colleagues are concerned that the child tax credit amounts to a backdoor into citizenship.