The United States is in the midst of a major debate over immigrants and their place in our
economic and political life. As during other times in our history, immigrants, are being blamed
for causing or contributing to the social, economic and political ills of our society. Politicians
from both major parties, at both the national and state levels, are promoting a range of punitive
legislative proposals that single out immigrants for adverse treatment by the government. Many
violate basic civil liberties principles.
Based on "The Bill of Rights", foreigners do not have the right to enter the United States,
but once here, immigrants are entitled to certain broad constitutional protections. In due process,
immigrants have the right to be treated fairly, whether in a deportation hearing or a criminal court
proceeding applies to every person within The United States borders. And Equal Protection
prohibits discrimination based on race or national origin. An alien's rights to free speech and
religious freedom are protected under the First Amendment. The Refugee Act of 1980 gives
certain aliens the right to political asylum in the U.S. New immigrants to our country are not a
scourge as some politicians claim. In fact, they can help solve many of our economic and social
problems. Therefore when a child is born of illegal parents, the child should not be refused
welfare. In other words, the child should not be treated as a second class citizen. In fact since it
was born in the United States, he or she is to be considered a United States citizen because that is
exactly what he or she is.
Although it is believed that welfare receipt as a child has a negative effect on the earnings
and employment capacity of young men , it is not always so in all cases. In my opinion if a boy on
welfare if taught certain principles about life from an early age in life, "welfare" should or will not
have such an effect on the boy. On the contrary, this boy with the complete understanding of what
welfare means will take a completely different approach.
Typically, liberals would dismiss this finding, arguing that families who receive a lot of
welfare payments have lower total incomes than other families in society, and that it is low overall
family income, not welfare, which has a negative effect on the young boys. But the 'Borcoran and
Gordon' study compares families whose average non-welfare incomes were identical. In such
cases, each extra dollar in welfare represents a net increase in overall financial resources available
to the family. This extra income, according to conventional liberal welfare theory should have
positive effects on the well-being of the children. But the study shows that the extra welfare
income, even though it produced a net increase in resources available to the family, the lower the
earnings obtained by the boys upon reaching adulthood.
Other studies have confirmed the negative effects of welfare on the development of children.
For example, young women who are raised in families dependent on welfare are two to three times
more likely to drop out and fail to graduate from high school than are young women of similar
race and socioeconomic background not raised on welfare. Similarly, single mothers who were
raised as children in families receiving welfare remain on AFDC longer as adult parents than do
single mothers who were not raised in welfare families, even when all other social and economic
variables are held constant.
In Washington, on July 19th, 1996, the senate voted to deny most Federal benefits and
social services to illegal immigrants who have not yet become citizens, and it blocked Democratic
efforts to aid children in families who lost public assistance under a welfare bill moving swiftly
through congress. Senators also defeated a proposal that would have required the Secretary of
Health and Human Services to study whether the legislation, if passed, causes an increase in
poverty among children in the next two years. The proposal would have required the Secretary to
suggest a way of halting any such increase.
With today's actions, the senate seems destined to follow the lead of the House, which
approved legislation to overhaul the nation's welfare laws by a vote of 256 to 170 on Thursday.
The senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, said that it is too early to tell
whether the welfare bill would be acceptable to President Clinton. Democrats on the whole have
proposed many amendments to soften the bill's impact on destitute children.
By a vote of 62 to 34, the Senate killed a proposal by Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of
Florida, to preserve welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and other benefits for legal immigrants.
Nearly 30 percent of the bill's savings --$18 billion of $61 billion over six years would be achieved
by denying such aid to legal immigrants.
Republicans said the restrictions were justified because when immigrants come to the
United States, they promise not to depend on public assistance. Senator Rick Santorum,
Republican of Pennsylvania, said this country was becoming a retirement haven for elderly
immigrants who quickly sign up for Supplemental Security Income benefits after they arrive. "We
have seen a real pattern of abuse" Mr. Santorum said.
But Senator Graham said the republicans bill would impose immense new costs on Florida,
New York, California, Texas, Illinois and other states with large numbers of immigrants. For
example, he said, public hospitals would still treat legal immigrants with low incomes, but the
hospitals would receive no reimbursement because such immigrants would be ineligible for
Medicaid and cannot afford private health insurance. It would not be entirely clear what benefits
would be available to children born in this country to immigrants.
Such children are United States citizens and could receive Medicaid cards, school lunch
subsidies and, in some cases, the child's portion of welfare benefits as well. But the details would
almost certainly need to be clarified through regulations. Many Democrats, having accepted the
idea of eliminating the entitlement to cash assistance for poor children, enthusiastically joined
President Clinton in the fight for vouchers. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York
Democrat harshly critical of the overall bill, suggested that priorities had gone wrong. We learn in
the press that the President is concerned, that there be vouchers made available for diapers, Mr.
Moynihan said. This is commendable, but, scarcely a suggestion that something fundamental is
about to happen.
If the Federal guarantee is ended, Mr. Moynihan said, we will be making cruelty to children
an instrument of social policy, we will have children sleeping on grates and there will be an urban
crises unlike anything we have known since the 1960's.
According to an article taken from the New York Times in 1996, Maria De La Rose, a 39
year old cashier at George's Meat Market in the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles, most of her
customers are welfare recipients. Many come from the Nickerson Gardens housing Project
nearby. "This welfare reform is going to affect a lot. Ninety- nine of customers are on welfare.
We get a flood of customers around the first of the month, when the welfare checks have just come
in. There will be a lot more crime, too. Without money people are going to have to find some way
to get food. Already, Kids steal potato chips. Why? Because their family doesn't have any money." She went on to say they offer credit to old-time customers, "By the middle of the month,
a lot of people's checks have run out especially if they have three or four kids. They can't manage
their money. If we go out of business, where else can these people go to get food? No one has a
car."
Glenn C. Loury, Professor of Economics, at Boston University, said We're biting a bullet
now and hoping that will induce changes in behavior in the future. I'm not convinced that it will.
I don't see in the research the degree of behavioral response to incentives that will produce the
kind of improvement that advocates of this bill say it will. I worry that the advocates are trying to
do something that can't really be done with income transfer policy: turn back the influence of
modernity. With the influence of television, movies and other media, the changes we see today,
like the increase in single-parent families, are as much in the non-welfare population as in the
welfare population.
PUBLIC OPINIONS ABOUT WELFARE
When President Clinton signed the welfare reform bill on August, 1996, it released a chain
of event that will continue to unfold far into the future.
It abolished "the aid to families with dependent children" which had been in existence for
sixty-one years. Its impact will literally be catastrophic. Millions of recipients including adults
and children who depended on it will be cut loss to fend for themselves. It also drastically reduced
the number of people eligible to receive food stamps. The bill also penalize most immigrants
arriving after August 22,1996. They will not be eligible for many federal benefits and services.
The burden of running the welfare benefits program has been transferred from the national
level to the states. Each state will have the right to set up its own program to meet new federal
guidelines. For cash assistance under block grants.
The people in congress who complemented each other on putting together the welfare reform bill
that is now official government policy may still rue the day that saw the birth of this new welfare
program.
Transferring the control of welfare problems to the states will inevitably create a hodge
podge of fifty different programs. It will create and enlarge new and existing burocracies to
administer these new programs. A great deal of the saving envisioned by congress will be eaten
up by paying the salaries to fifty new state programs.
The congress as well as the states still do not have any long range programs to provide
training and jobs for all the dependent people who in the meantime will have their benefits
reduced or eliminated.
The programs for child care and education at all levels will also be adversely affected by the
new law.
In reality, it is a cruel farce the government has imposed on millions of adults and children
who are the least able to care for and defend themselves.
Many public figures have also expressed strong disapproval of the bill including the senator
Patrick Moynihan, Mayor Giuliani of New York City and the Governor of N.Y. state, George
Pataki.
Judy L. Chesser, a deputy commissioner of society security said that the bill would deny aid
to 75,000 severely disabled legal immigrants who would have received benefits under
the budget agreement. This number will rise to 125,000 in 2007, she said.
One small bright spot in this dismal situation is the waiver on food stamp sought and
received by the Pataki administration which will continue food stamp benefits for additional five
months for legal immigrants.
Another plus has been the restoration of disability and health benefits to several hundred
thousand legal immigrants under the budget agreement.
Liz Krueger, associate director of the Community Food Resource Center , a non-profit
advocacy group said that the extension of food stamps for another five months was a positive
development.
Cecilia Munoz, deputy V.P. of the National Council of Laraza, a Hispanic civil rights
organization, also welcomed the restoration of certain benefits under the new budget agreement.
The following are the additional opinions on the subject of welfare reform:
Isabel Sawhill ----Senior fellow, urban Institute
Ms Sawhill believes that the current welfare system has poor children. She states that we
really haven't come up with an improved system. We are taking about $60 million and
withdrawing it from low-income families over the next six year, and not reinvesting that money in
more effective anti-poverty problems. We are not using it to improve head state and inner city
schools.
It works as if we are going to spend the money on ether a middle-class tax cut or protecting
middle-class entitlements from the budget ax. This is not welfare reform. It's a redistribution of
income from the poor to the rest of us.
Bishop Felton E ---- May, Central Pennsylvania Conference Of the United Methodist Church
After visiting Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire, He spoke to a gathering of 2,000 women in
nearby Mutare Zimbabwe. As he described the refugee children siting naked and violently ill in
the mud and muck of the camps, his sermon was interrupted by the women coming forward and
laying there coast-the only ones they had--in a tall pole at the front of the assembly for him to take
to the refugee children. After that, they wrapped themselves in sheets of plastic to prevent
themselves from the chill.
He refuses to believe that Americans care any less about their children. In according the 1.2
million children who would be forced into poverty by the current welfare reform legislation. How
can we collectively as a national government turn our back on any child in poverty?
Roul Yzaguire ---- President of the National Council of La Rosa, a Hispanic service organization
This the worst thing that has happened to Hispanic since the President Polic declared war
on Mexico.
"It's always been a principle that you treat resident aliens the same way you treat everyone
else. You expect them to serve in the armed forces, pay taxes, and live up to other responsibilities.
You don't say, you're not a citizen, you don't have to pay taxes. Now, you have no requirement to
pay in, but the government has not requirement to respond to you. I just think that's
fundamentally wrong. It's biased, it's bigotry, it's anti-immigrant fever run amok.
Senator Phil Gramm --- Texas Republican Who Voted for The Bill
The message of this legislation is honest and straight forward: if you are able-bodied and on
welfare, we are going to find you training and we're going to help you find a job, but you will
reach a point where have to work.
Rosemary L.Bray ---- Author of "Unafraid of the Park" A fourth coming memoir of her childhood on welfare
To quote -What would I do about welfare? I 'd begin by remembering what made it
workable --- a national commitment to help poor children, and what made me it difficult.The
contempt of the more fortunate for those who have less.
I'd remind those who seem not to know better that poverty is not a generic condition.
I'd be sure to demand a minimum standard of care from each state, so that state's rights did
not come to mean the right to deny food, housing or medical care to poor children and there
parents safe and reliable child care is crucial.
Finally. I would coordinate efforts among law-enforcement and child child-support agencies
to track down and prosecute adult men who have chosen to have sex with teenage girls.
These sexual liasons account for more than 50 percent of all babies born to teenage mothers,
and a significant number of them are coercive in woman under 18-consensual or not ---would
result in mandatory jail time teenage pregnancy rates would plummet.
Representative Rober T. Matsoi --- A California Democrat Who Opposed The Bill
It's fantasy to believe the states will be able to protect children in poverty by abdicating
responsibility for the poor the states. We force children to compete with services like fire and
police protection. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where state and local government priorities
will be.
Huge Price ---- President, National Urban League
The states cannot be counted upon to protect their most vulnerable citizens. Years ago, we ended
mental health treatment as we knew it, and the states never established community-based
mental health care, fiscally strapped states left those problems in a lunch and removed the safety
net. As a result the mentally ill are out on the streets of the nation's cities. If you impose a time
limit and theme is a local labor market where there are not enough private jobs to go around,
what are mothers and children going to do? They are going to prostitution and panhandling.
Douglas J.Besharov ---- President Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, A Conservative Research Organization
After you get done with all the rhetoric from both sides--- this bill hardly forces states to do
anything states that want to "end welfare as we know it" now have the tools to do so, but states
that want to continue the status quo can do that ,too. Real welfare reform is now up to the states.
Alex Rotlowitz ---- Author of "There Are No Children Here"
Welfare did not cause poverty nor is it the reason for it's persistence.
Put together a cohesive agenda to rebuild these inner-city communities. After all, that's
really where this current welfare legislation is aimed.
Strengthen the schools, build decent housing, offer drug treatment, provide job training
centers, create a modest public work program, putting people to work repairing infrastructure in
their communities.
In short, furnish opportunity, then let's talk about continuing a rent or food subsidy through
the first few months of a new job and giving vouchers for child care. Sadly enough, there will be
some who, because of depression or drugs or just plain, responsibility will remain out of the
mainstream. But at least they will have had real choices.
Sieglinda Meyer ---- A 28-year-old Nurse From Sport Springs,N.C.
I don't have any problem with people who need help. Things happen but I have a problem
with helping perpetuate the cycle.
When I was a single mother,. I worked two jobs in order to support my kids. Some women
are having baby after baby, and they're telling the state, "take care of it". If I can't afford to have a
baby, I don't have one. Others can be just as responsible. You can get birth control for free.
Richard Casuso ---- A 31-year-old Records Manager For A Law Firm. He lives in Brooklyn's Boshwick area which has many poor residents.
My parents always pushed me on to go on to school and do the best I could , I could land a
good job. As I did so, a couple of people I knew from the neighborhood were career welfare
people. Their grandparents were on welfare, their parents were on welfare......It's so funny
because I remember a guy who grew with us...... we used to play sports together. When I would
go to work in the morning, he was going to the park with his basketball.
There are people who do need it, and I really hope to god that there is a way they can prove
that they need it, and government is willing work with them. I think this is an excellent way to
weed not the hypocrites, the liars, the people for a joy ride. I hate to hear Democrats saying we're
going to hurt the poor. That's not necessarily true. What I think we 're going to do is start
breathing new life into them.
ABOUT CIVIL RIGHTS
In Washington, on September 20th House and Senate Republicans struggle to salvage a
bill cracking down on both legal and illegal aliens, so that President Clinton would sign it.
The major sticking point is a provision that would allow states to ban illegal immigrant
hildren from schools. The education provision is especially popular in California which says it spends $1.8 billion a year to educate more than 350,000 children who are illegal immigrants. Mr.
Wilson realizing the civil rights of the children sent a letter to senate Republicans urging them to
"do the right thing" and include the education provision, which is sponsored by a California
Republican, Representative Elton Gollegly.
Civil rights advocates and their congressional supporters said that even if the education
provision is dropped, other less-noticed provisions in the bill would threaten the environment,
deny legal protection to all immigrants and impose harsher restrictions on legal immigrants than
the recently passed welfare bill.
Under these provisions, legal immigrants could be deported if they used many types of
public aid, like child care and English classes, for more than twelve months. The concerns are
broad enough that the White House has refused to promise that President Clinton will sign the bill
even if the education provision was dropped. "There are clearly things in the bill we don't like,"
said George Stephen , a senior adviser to the President. I'm not going to play the "What if game".
Civil rights advocates argues that the Senate had jumped the gun by failing to wait for
regulations that under the new Federal Statue, the Justice Department must issue directives within
the next 18 months on how the immigration status of people applying for service should be
verified. Mr. Wilson, these opponents said, has in effect usurped Federal jurisdiction over the
country's immigration laws by authorizing almost any state employee to begin asking the people
they served whether they entered the United States legally.
Mark Rosenbaum, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern
California, one of the lawyers who want a federal injunction against Proposition 187 last
Novermber said "If they try to implement any part of this tomorrow, we will be in court the next
day. Opponents of the governor's order maintained that it would promote discrimination against
anyone who might appear to be immigrant to inquiring state employees. "They said by restricting
access to primary health care, it would send illegal immigrants flooding into hospital emergency
rooms, thus incresing taxpayers health cost rather than reducing them, and might ultimately pose
a public health emergency.
Mr Wilson, an ordent supporter of Proposition 187, has led a small but influential groupof
governors in demanding both Federal compensation for the cost incurred by states in helping
illegal immigrants and the right to cut off services to them. In issuing his order today, he acted
under a provision of the new Federal benefits law except a few specific services like emergency
medical care, immunization programs and emergency disaster relief. The Federal law allows the
states to extend assistance to illegal immigrants only by enacting a new state law "which
affrimatively provides for such eligibility.
Some immigrants-rights advocates said they agreed that most of the restrictions expected to
result fron Mr Wilson's order would eventually be allowed under the Federal legislation in any
case. According to Cecilia Munoz, on official of the National Council of Laraza, on umbrella
organization of Hispanic groups saidl that the welfare bill does explicitly give the states the right
to do almost anything they want to do. Mr Wilson is doing it in a very political way.
"These kinds of things cost much more to implement than they save", Ms Munoz said.
Anybody with the wrong last name is immediately a suspect. If somebody like me applies for a
cosmetology license, I could be denied access to thing I have a right to, because of my ethnicity
although I am a U.S. citizen.
Citation
Jones, Charise. "Uncertain Welcome: Immigrants And Welfare". New York Times 26 Aug. 1996, late ed.: A1. New York Times Ondisc. CD-Rom.UMI-ProQUest. March 1998
Pear,Robert. "The Welfare bill: The Overview; Clinton to sign welfare Bill That Ends U.S. Aid Gurantee And Gives States Broad Power". New York Times 1 Aug. 1996, late ed.: A1.New York Times Ondisc. CD-Rom.UMI-ProQUest. March 1998
Pear,Robert. "A Move To Restore Benefits To Some Immigrants". New York Times 1 Aug. 1996, late ed.: 1 30. New York Times Ondisc. CD-Rom.UMI-ProQUest. March 1998
Firestone, David. "Mayoral Order On Immigrants Is Struck Down". New York Times 4 May. 1997, late ed.: 1 21.New York Times Ondisc. CD-Rom.UMI-ProQUest. March 1998
Schmitt, Eric. "Congress Approve A Tough Immigrantion Bill". New York Times 25 Sep. 1996, late ed.: A15. New York Times Ondisc. CD-Rom.UMI-ProQUest. March 1998
Schmitt, Eric. "47 Oppose Bill To Keep Illegal Aliens Out Of School". New York Times 1 Aug. 1996, late ed.: A20. New York Times Ondisc. CD-Rom.UMI-ProQUest. March 1998
Terry, Don. "Atrong Blow Is Delievered To State Law On Aliens". New York Times 15 Nov.1997, late ed.:A8. New York Times Ondisc.CD-Rom.UMI-ProQUest. March 1998
Waldman, Amy. "Giuliana Oppose Biill To Deny Benefits To New Immigrants" New
YorkTimes12 Aug. 1997, late ed.: B3.New York Times
Ondisc.CD-Rom.UMI-ProQUest.March.1998
Federal Action Alert: Urge President Clinton to Veto Welfare Legislation that Harms Children. Online. Yahoo. Internet. 10 Mar. 1998.
Immigrants' Rights. American Civil Liberties Union Freedom Network. Online. America Online. Internet. 10 Mar. 1998. Available ftp://iaehv.nl/users/hverbak/alert.htm
Welfare Reform: CDF Summarize Conference Bill. Online. Yahoo. Internet. 10 Mar. 1998. Available ftp://libertynet.org/~edcivic/welfcdf.html
Why Congress Must Reform Welfare. Heritage. Online. Yahoo. Internet. 10 Mar. 1998 Available ftp://nationalsecurity.org/heritage/library/categories/healthwel/bg1063.htm child's portion of welfare benefits as well. But the details would
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