The Legal Aid Society is providing clients information on a recent ruling granting eligibility to people in custody in jails and prisons seeking stimulus payments under the CARES Act, as reported by El Dario.

CARES Act Stimulus Money is a one-time payment from the government for individuals and families whose incomes are below certain levels.

Last week, a federal judge held that the Internal Revenue Service must provide CARES Act stimulus payments to eligible people in custody. The deadline to apply to the IRS for those payments is October 15, 2020, rendering the relief ordered virtually inaccessible to most New Yorkers in custody because of the barriers posed by incarceration.

Legal Aid called on city, state, and federal officials to provide meaningful access to applications for those funds.

“Congress passed the CARES Act because of the tremendous economic blow dealt by the COVID-19 pandemic, falling most squarely on communities of color,” said Tina Luongo, Attorney-in-Charge of the Criminal Defense Practice at the Legal Aid Society.

“It was wrong for the Treasury Department to withheld payments from people just because they were incarcerated, and this ruling does not rectify that wrong unless every eligible person in custody has a meaningful ability to claim the funds Congress intended to give them,” she continued. “The deadline is less than two weeks away, and every city, state, and federal actor must join together to remove any barriers preventing people in custody from timely applying. Mass incarceration has cost our clients so much. It should not also cost them this critical economic assistance to which they are entitled.”