Press Releases

Moore and Sánchez Lead in Raising Alarm on Department of Treasury Effort to Wrongly Target Immigrants and Overstep Congress

Ways and Means Committee Members Reps. Gwen Moore (WI-04) and Linda Sánchez (CA-38) led a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent following news that the Treasury Department plans to weaponize tax credits to target immigrants and undermine Congress by designating refundable portions of certain tax credits as public benefits under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).

PRWORA’s limitations on eligibility for public benefits restricts which noncitizens can access public benefits but does not apply to tax credits including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), and the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC). Treasury’s unprecedented move to expand the reach of that law for the first time to apply to certain refundable tax credits would deprive children and families of critical benefits they are otherwise eligible for and defies congressional intent.

In their letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the Members reaffirmed Congress’ authority to write laws, noting: “We are alarmed that the Department of Treasury (Treasury) is planning to usurp Congressional authority and issue regulations that contradict clearly defined statutes in the Internal Revenue.

The rules regarding the eligibility criteria for these credits are clearly defined by Congress in the IRC. Congress has modified these credits since PRWORA was enacted (most recently in Public Law 119-21 (2025)) but has never made the changes that Treasury is now proposing.

As such, Congress clearly did not intend to import PRWORA’s limits on eligibility for federal public benefits to noncitizens into these credits. Treasury’s announcement suggesting they will seek to reclassify the refundable amount of these credits as a “federal public benefit” would clearly differ from and contradict what Congress has specified in law.”

The Members continued: “Treasury must not abuse its discretion to write regulations implementing the IRC by overwriting the requirements clearly outlined in law.”

Read the full letter here.

Signers: Representatives Danny K. Davis, Terri A. Sewell, Suzan K. DelBene, Judy Chu, Don S. Beyer Jr, Jimmy Gomez, and Tom R. Suozzi.