Hello,
In order for you to be able to get the Child Tax Credit you are required to be Resident Aliens amongst other qualifying criteria. Under the IRS Pub 519, IRS Pub 519 , you're a resident alien for tax purposes if you meet either the "Green Card" Test or "Substantial Presence " test of 183 days. There's however additional provision that says "if you do not meet either of these tests, you may
be able to choose to be treated as a U.S. residents for part of the year" under the provision called "First-Year Choice".
Under the First-Year-Choice, in your case, you may choose to be treated as a U.S. resident for rest of 2021 if you meet the substantial presence test for 2022, and :
1. You're present in the US for at least 31 days in 2021, and
2. You're present in the United States for at least 75% of the number of days beginning with the first day of the 31-day period and ending with the last day of 2021. For purposes of this 75% requirement, you can treat up to 5 days of absence from the United States as days of presence in the United States
When counting the days of presence in (1) and (2) above, do not count the days you were in the United States under any of the exceptions discussed earlier under the Days of Presence in the United States stated in Pub 519.
If you chose to be treated as US residents in 2021, then your daughter who was born in the U.S. and has a valid SSN will qualify for child tax credit but your son who only has an ITIN will NOT qualify. Please see further information here What is Child Tax Credit? You son may be eligible for the $500 Dependent Relative Credit. If you did NOT chose to be treated as U.S. residents for the rest of 2021, then neither of your children will qualify because your family did not meet either the Green Card or the Substantial Presence tests.
Assuming you chose to be treated as U.S. residents for the rest of 2021 and you're still not able to get any information about your refund at the IRS's "Get Refund Status" portal after six months, you may want to call and speak to a rep or visit your local IRS office to sort things out. In order to get a chance to speak with an IRS rep on the phone, you should try and make the call between 7am - 8am your local time.
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