by Isabelle Spencer
Table of Contents
On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, P.L. 104-93. On September30, 1996, he signed an omnibus spending bill that incorporates the Illegal Immigration Reform and the Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996, P.L.104-28. The new welfare package is a comprehensive piece of legislation with far reaching implications for both legal and illegal aliens. Each state is now responsible for passing legislation that determines the eligibility of "qualified aliens" in receiving state and federal benefits.
The major goal of the of the act is to attack dependency on welfare, encouraging work while at the same time maintaining the use of welfare as a safety net for families experiencing temporary financial problems. The act reflects a shift that has been in the undertaking for more than two decades among social scientists who study the inner city poor, family break up and welfare dependency. One of the topics receiving the most attention of the 1990's has been on redesigning welfare in order to "foster self help." One of President Clinton’s social policy advisors, Dr. William Julius Wilson, a professor of social policy at Harvard University, his research on the impact of welfare dependency is a "devastating chronicle of the loss of purpose among young blacks growing up in Chicago’s ghettos." (The Economist, 1992). This widespread belief that permanent benefits have contributed to welfare dependency had a major influence on President Clinton’s campaign for welfare reform.
Another contributing factor in the decision to revamp the welfare system is the issue of immigration. Two studies conducted by the Harris Organization and reported by the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reveal that an increasing anti-immigrant sentiment toward welfare use exists in the United States. The results of these two studies, one conducted in 1992 and the other in 1994, show that an increasing amount of Americans feel that immigrants use more than their fair share of government services, such as welfare, medical care, and food stamps. In 1992, 51.5% of the respondents agreed that immigrants use more than their fair share of benefits, while in 1994, 71.3% agreed. The results in the latter study indicates a 19.8% increase in just two years. Please see the table below.
| Harris Polls | ||||
Agree |
51.5% |
71.3% |
||
Disagree |
40.5% |
25.1% |
||
Not Sure |
8.00% |
3.6% |
||
The new law restricting immigrant access to benefits is premised on the assumption that welfare use by immigrants is widespread, growing rapidly and given to the undeserving. Although not all immigrants receive welfare, every year the immigration rate continues to rise. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, it is well known that immigration fuels population growth. Immigrants have an indirect and direct contribution to population growth. Immigrants add directly to the U.S. foreign-born population when they become residents and indirectly when they have children in the U.S.. The majority of the population growth is due to both the current high level immigration and births to immigrant women. The Center for Immigration Studies believe that priority should be placed in efforts to stabilize the size of the population due to resources, environmental concerns and other issues relating to the quality of life that could be negatively impacted as a result of an increase in the population.
| Immigration's Direct and Indirect Effects on Net Population Growth | |||||||||
| Indirect Impact |
|||||||||
Immigrant Births |
725,000 |
||||||||
Direct Impact | |||||||||
| Legal Immigration |
800,000 |
||||||||
| Death |
(250,000) |
||||||||
| Emigration |
(160,000) |
||||||||
| Net Illegal Immigration |
300,000 |
||||||||
| Total Direct |
690,000 |
||||||||
| Total Direct and Indirect |
1,415,000 |
||||||||
A well known and comprehensive study of the public sector costs of legal and illegal immigrants in the United States is by Dr. Donald Huddle of Rice University, Houston, Texas, sponsored by Carrying Capacity Network of Washington, D.C.. The Huddle Study estimates that post-1969 immigrants create a net deficit of $44.2 billion annually. The largest direct public benefits costs for all immigrants covered in the study in 1994 were primary and secondary public education ($15.56 billion); Medicaid ($11.41 billion); gross local government expense ($15.93 billion); public higher education ($5.0 billion); Social Security ($19.83 billion); and bilingual education ($2.95 billion). Benefit programs for some 6.75 million illegal immigrants and their children born in the United States were: primary and secondary education ($4.51 billion); gross local government costs ($3.93 billion); Medicaid ($2.25 billion), and Social Security ($2.81 billion).
The Rising Number of Immigrants on Welfare
Findings from the General Accounting Office indicate between 1983 and 1993, the number of immigrants receiving SSI more than quadrupled, increasing from 151,000 to 683,000. During this period, immigrants grew from about 4 percent of all SSI recipients to more than 11 percent. As a percentage of all adult AFDC recipients, immigrants grew from about 5 percent to 8 percent. Overall, immigrants received an estimated $3.3 billion in SSI benefits and $1.2 billion in AFDC benefits in 1993. Most immigrants that have received benefits are lawful permanent residents and refugees.
Welfare use is disproportionate in the United States with 52.4% of all immigrants receiving SSI and AFDC live in California. The question asked is Immigration causing a resurgence of poverty in rural America? Analysts from the Population Studies Center focused on the major agriculture regions of California that have grown as a result of immigration from Mexico. In these growing towns from 25% to 50% of families have incomes below the poverty level compared to 11% to 12% for U.S. families as a whole. The rest of the immigrants receiving these benefits account for 30.5 percent and live in three other states: New York, Florida and Texas.
Welfare use is found mostly among two groups of immigrants according to the Urban Institute: elderly immigrants and refugees. Both refugees and elderly immigrants make up 21 percent of immigrants, but account for 40 percent of all immigrant welfare users. Elderly immigrants represent 28 percent of the SSI recipients aged 65 and older but only 9 percent of the total elderly population. Refugees are also significantly more likely to use welfare than the rest of the immigration population (13.1 percent versus 5.8 percent). The reason that refugees are more inclined to use welfare is based on the fact that refugees are thought to be fleeing persecution, have fewer family ties in the United States than other immigrants, and often suffer physical and mental impairments. As a result, Congress exempted refugees from the provisions of the act and is eligible for benefits.
The new legislation creates a new eligibility category for aliens called "qualified aliens". A qualified alien is defined as an alien who is lawfully admitted for permanent residence; an asylee; a refugee; an alien who is paroled into the United States for at least one year; an alien whose deportation is being withheld; or an alien who is granted conditional entry. Also, considered qualified are certain battered aliens and alien parents of battered children under certain conditions.
Other qualified aliens that will continue to be eligible for SSI or food stamps are aliens who are lawfully living in the U.S. and who are veterans with an honorable discharge or are on active duty in the Armed Forces. The last exceptions are lawful permanent residents who have worked forty qualifying quarters and who did not receive any federal means-tested benefits during any of those quarters. Legal residents can be credited with qualifying quarters worked by their parents while the alien was less than eighteen, and by the alien’s spouse during their marriage, provided that the marriage did not end in divorce.
What are the new restrictions on public benefits for "qualified aliens"?
The majority of "qualified aliens" are no longer entitled to most public benefits. According to the Urban Istitute, the first of these is a bar from Supplemental Social Security Income (SSI) and food stamps. The second is a bar of qualified aliens arriving after August 22, 1996, for most means-tested programs for the first five years in the United States. The third restriction applies to both qualified aliens that have arrived in the United States before or after the enactment of the law. The state will have the option of denying assistance under the following federally funded programs: Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) formerly (AFDC); Title XX Social Services (a block grant that States use to fund, i.e., child care and services to the elderly). It also requires that the income of an immigrant's sponsor be deemed available to the immigrant for purposes of determining eligibility for all means-tested federal, state, and local programs. The deeming period continues until the immigrant becomes a citizen.
Supplemental Social Income (SSI) is a needs-based program available to low income individuals who are 65 or older, blind, or disabled. According to the Urban Institute, the composition of the SSI program comprises the following:
| Supplemental Social Income (SSI) | |||||||||||||
Percent of total SSI recipients who are aliens |
1.5% | ||||||||||||
Percent of SSI elderly recipients who are aliens |
28.2% | ||||||||||||
Percent of SSI blind and disabled recipients who are aliens |
5.9% | ||||||||||||
Percent of foreign born who receive SSI |
3.3% | ||||||||||||
Welfare use by the elderly is concentrated in the SSI program. Although, the elderly immigrants make up only 9 percent of the total immigrant population, they make up 28 percent of SSI recipients aged 65 and over. According to the Urban Institute, there are two probable factors that help explain elderly usage. First, many elderly immigrants may not have worked enough qualifying hours in the United States to receive Social Security. And second, because it is difficult for elderly immigrants to obtain health insurance, many use SSI as a bridge to Medicaid. Without SSI, both the elderly and those immigrants who become disabled or blind after entry into the United States may not have sufficient resources to meet even their basic needs.
Temporary Assistance for needy families (TANF) and Medicaid
States have the option to determine the eligibility of current legal immigrants for federal cash assistance under Title IV-A, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) formerly (AFDC); Title XX Social Services (a block grant that States use to fund, i.e., child care and services to the elderly) according to the Health Care Financing Administration, the federal agency that administers the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The new welfare reform law eliminates the AFDC cash assistance program and replaces it with a block grant program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). However, families who meet the AFDC eligibility criteria prior to welfare reform will be eligible for Medicaid. The purpose of TANF program is to provide assistance to needy families with children, and to reduce the dependency by promoting job preparation, work and marriage. States are permitted to deny Medicaid benefits to adults and heads of household who lose TANF benefits because of refusal to work. However, welfare reform law specifically exempts poverty-related pregnant women and children from this provision and mandates their continued Medicaid eligibility.
Medicaid provides reimbursement for doctor's services, hosptal care, and prescription drugs to participating providers who care for low-income individuals. According to the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) there is a mandatory ban on Medicaid eligibility for immigrants who are "qualified aliens" and those that are newly admitted to the U.S. on or after August 22, 1996. After the five-year deeming period, an immigrant's access to Medicaid is at State option. For those who have individual sponsors who sign new, legally binding affidavits of support (required elsewhere in welfare reform, beginning no later than February 1997), States must deem the income and resources of the immigrant's sponsor (and sponsor's spouse) to be available to support the immigrant when determining the immigrant's eligibility for Medicaid.
How many Legal and Illegal Immigrants are affected by the new law?
A report prepared for the National Governor’s Association by the Immigrant Policy Project, revealed that the number of immigrants potentially affected by this bill nationwide are almost 2.1 million. The SSI cuts impact almost 500,000 legal immigrants that receive this benefit. It affects 1,000,000 aliens from receiving food stamps and 600,000 from Medicaid. The immigrant related provisions of the welfare act could save approximately $23.8 billion in the next five years by denying benefits to legal immigrants. However, these federal savings are potentially absorbed as costs for each state.
Implications of the Welfare Reform Act
While, studies that provide information on the new legislation's impact are not readily available. Several predictions are made from various groups and organizations.
Some predict that states will make sure that the benefits program they are offering will not be better but worse than other states in an attempt to avoid an influx of people seeking a more generous benefit program. (Edelman, 1997). Under the new law, states will be provided block grants and will be responsible for designing and administering their own welfare programs. Each state will have the authority to prohibit or otherwise limit or restrict the eligibility of an alien. There is no federal definition of who is eligible. According to the American Welfare Public Association, the original definition was deleted due to the Byrd rule, "it is the intent of House and Senate Conferees that the ... definition be used by states" in carrying out the authority under this section. There is no requirement in the new that assistance is to be provided to needy families for state administered federal programs such as TANF, social services block grants, and Medicaid.
A public research group, the Economic and Policy Institute, predict that in response to the new reforms states will reduce the welfare benefits by 17 to 25 percent. In addition, when combined with the fiscal impact of tightened welfare eligibility and reduced case loads, total welfare spending will be reduced by 30%. Other evidence points to the fact that by cutting off benefits will only be successful if resources are spend on job placement, training and child care. (Dimas, 1996)
Now all federal, state and local agencies that provide public benefits will be responsible for determining the eligibility of applicants for such benefits. These changes will essentially generate three separate regimes of welfare eligibility-one for natives; one for current immigrants (those in the U.S. at the time of passage); and one for future immigrants. The implication of this is a strain on these administrations. Take for example, the INS, which is notorious for its weak management structure, faulty accounting systems and inacuurate information systems. It already has to deal with the 9 month backlog of applications for citizenship as a result of the new legislation. The INS verification system needs to become more efficient (Fragomen Jr., 1996).
Citizenship is now a condition for receiving social welfare and therefore, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the number of applicants for citizenship has continued to increase as a result of the new law. In fiscal year 1196, the INS naturalized approximately 1.1 million people and received more than 1.2 million new applications. The INS estimates that over the next three years, applications for naturalization will increase by more than one million additional applications and they expect to receive up to 1.8 million applications in fiscal year 1997.
As an increasing amount of recipients will be cut off from receiving benefits, the common view held is that there will be an increase in the number of homelessness. As a result, this will put more of a demand on shelters and soup kitchens that are already in need of financial help. It logically follows that there will increased cases of malnutrition, crime, increased infant mortality, drug and alcohol abuse. There will be increase in family violence and abuse against children and women, as a result adding an additional strain on the problem of an already overloaded child-welfare system and battered women’s shelters.
Is the Immigration and Welfare Reform Act Constitutional?
A coalition of civil rights groups and Mayor Rudolf Guiliani have filed seperate suits to block a key provision of the new legislation. They charge that it violates the constitutional rights of legal immigrants who lose disability and food stamps because they are not citizens. (Havemann, 1997)
The lead plaintiff in the law suit by civil rights groups in New York, is Juan Tomas Abreau, a 41-year old legal permanent resident from the Dominican Republic, who has suffered from a brain hemorrage and has been camotose for the past five years. He lives on $570 in monthly checks from the SSI program. According to the suit, he is mentally unable to take on the language, history and the steps required for becoming a citizen. They argue that it is totally irrational to deny benefits to legal permanent residents who are mentally unable to become citizens. (Havemann, 1997).
Welfare use by the elderly immigrants is concentrated in the SSI program. Both the elderly and the disabled who have been in the United States for a long time are of particular concern. The federal benefits they receive are there only source of income. What will become of this group if they are mentally unable to become citizens? If the states they are residing in are unwilling to take on the responsibility of caring for them. Will they be thrown out of their homes or out of nursing homes or other group residential settings that are no longer reimbursed for their care?
According to Mayor Giuliani, this new legislation also severely affects those legal immigrants who have worked in the United States for decades and have honestly paid their dues to Social Security and income taxes. Denying them disability and old age assistance and food stamps are unconstitutional. He contends that the provisions of the welfare law that deny public services to legal immigrants are morally wrong and violate the fifth amendment of the Constitution. The government is discriminating against these individuals by allowing them to come into the country and pay taxes, but then to deny them help when they are in need of temporary assistance (Nation’s Cities Weekly 1996).
An amendment that would have allowed states to deny public education to illegal immigrants was deleted from the Immigration and Reform Act. Provisions in the Gallegley amendment that would deny public education to undocumented children is unconstitutional. In the case of Plyler v. Doe, 1982, filed in the United States District Court on behalf of school age children of Mexican origin in Texas whose legal alien status could not be determined, were denied a public education. The District Court held that a Texas statute which withholds form local school districts any state funds for the education of children who were not legally admitted into the United States, and which authorizes local school districts to deny enrollment to such children, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Welfare and Immigration Reform Act puts an end to the 61-year old federal guarantee of providing welfare. Instead, states will receive a block grant to tailor their own welfare plans as they seem fit. The government estimates that restricting public benefits for legal aliens will save approximately $20 billion dollars over the next six years. The real effects of the new legislation are can only be quantified over time. The only concrete evidence in response to the new Welfare and Immigration Act is the surge in naturalization over the next year.
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