04.30.20

Chair Grijalva Leads Letter to Treasury Department Pressing for Immediate Disbursement of Improperly Delayed COVID-19 Stimulus Checks in Puerto Rico

Washington, D.C. – Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today led a bicameral letter with 15 other Democratic lawmakers pressing the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service to disburse overdue funds to Puerto Ricans suffering from the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawmakers point out that Puerto Rican officials sent Treasury and the IRS a draft plan for the disbursement of stimulus checks to residents on April 8, but federal officials have yet to approve it.

Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans are still waiting for emergency assistance to which they are legally entitled, the authors write, noting, “There is no logical reason for why these individuals have been excluded and are being discriminated against.” The full letter is available at https://bit.ly/2WaK69f.

The authors urge the Trump administration to expedite the approval of the Government of Puerto Rico’s relief plan and disburse stimulus checks for individuals and families without delay.

The letter follows a livestreamed roundtable Grijalva hosted on April 29 focusing on health and financial issues affecting U.S. territories, where Reps. Gregorio Sablan (D-CNMI) and Michael San Nicolas (D-Guam) joined Grijalva and a panel of speakers to examine how Congress can better support territorial residents through the pandemic. You can watch that event at https://bit.ly/2KxXRcw.

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