Fairness for Legal Immigrants

(July 28, 1999)

Issue:

On April 14, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) introduced the Fairness for Legal Immigrants Act of 1999. This legislation restores to legal immigrants critical health and nutritional benefits that were denied under the 1996 federal welfare law.

Action:

Ask your Senators and Representative to support fair access to public benefits for legal immigrants regardless of their date of arrival in this country. Ask them to support the Fairness for Legal Immigrants Act (S. 792, H.R. 1399). If your elected official is already a co-sponsor (see reverse), express your thanks and encourage him or her to continue to work for passage of this legislation.

Write or Call:

Phone your legislators through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or write:

Honorable ________
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Honorable ________
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Backgroud:

Under the 1996 federal welfare law, called the Personal Responsibility Act, most legal noncitizen immigrants lost eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and food stamp benefits. Legal immigrants who had been in this country for years, working and paying taxes, were denied access to public benefits if they found themselves in need.

Over the next two years, congressional Republicans and Democrats alike realized that the 1996 legislation had perhaps gone too far. The 105th Congress passed legislation to ameliorate some of the law's harshest consequences, restoring food stamp benefits and SSI to certain legal immigrants. However, some of the most vulnerable groups were not included in these restorations. They include legal immigrant pregnant women and children needing basic health care, and immigrants who entered the United States after enactment of the welfare law (Aug. 22, 1996) and later became disabled.

The 1999 Act goes a little further toward fairness. It includes provisions to:

• Permit states to provide Medicaid to low-income women and children who are legal immigrants, along with coverage under the new state Child Health Insurance Program for legal immigrant children, regardless of the date of arrival in the United States;
• Permit states to restore Medicaid eligibility to certain legal immigrants in nursing homes;
• Restore SSI eligibility to legal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. after the enactment of the welfare law (Aug. 22, 1996) and who subsequently became disabled;
• Restore food stamp eligibility to all legal immigrants who were in the United States prior to Aug. 22, 1996;
• Expand eligibility for benefits to immigrants who are victims of domestic violence.

Restoration of benefits is a matter of fairness and decency. Most legal immigrants work and pay taxes that support benefits for othersþbenefits they are not eligible to receive in time of need. The legislation also has public health implications. Society benefits if all residents have access to needed health care. If pregnant women and children are denied basic preventive care, this may lead to costly health complications. Access to health care must be based on public health considerations, not on the date that an individual entered the country. It is shortsighted to think that legal immigrant children will not get sick, that pregnant women can get by without care or that healthy working people will never become disabled and need assistance.

Moreover, restrictions on federal benefit programs have increased the burden on state and local governments. Because immigrants are not covered under Medicaid, states and localities are forced to provide care without federal reimbursement. In most cases legal immigrants are working and paying federal taxes; when they become disabled or sick, however, the federal government doesn't share the cost. The estimated federal cost of the Moynihan/Levin legislation is $2.5 to $3 billion over five years.

CO-SPONSORS AS OF 5/10/99:

SENATE: Democrats: Moynihan (N.Y.); Feinstein (Calif.), Murray (Wash.), Schumer (N.Y.), Graham (Fla.), Durbin (Ill.), Kennedy (Mass.), Wellstone (Wis.), Leahy (Vt.).

HOUSE: Republicans: Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), Diaz-Balart (Fla.). Democrats: Levin (Mich.); Akaka (Hawaii), Matsui (Calif.), Cardin (Md.), Dixon (Calif.), Frank (Mass.), Hastings (Fla.), Meeks (N.Y.), McMulty (N.Y.), Millender-McDonald (Calif.), Mink (Hawaii), Roybal-Allard (Calif.), Gutierrez (Ill.), Becerra (Calif.), Coyce (Pa.), Clayton (N.C.), McGovern (Mass.), Delahunt (Mass.), Berman (Calif.), McDermott (Wash.), McKinney (Ga.), Frost (Tex.), Hinojosa (Tex.), Velazquez (N.Y.), Nadler (N.Y.), Brown (Fla.), Towns (N.Y.), Rush (Ill.), Menendez (N.J.), LaFalce (N.Y.), Kennedy (R.I.), Dooley (Calif.), Lee (Calif.), Davis (Ill.), Miller (Calif.), Waxman (Calif.), Schakowsky (Ill.), Wynn (Md.), Olver (Mass.), Jefferson (La.), Sawyer (Ohio).

General Assembly Guidance:

The 1994 General Assembly urged Presbyterians to work for a just and compassionate U.S. immigration policy. Such a policy must: 1. Provide for the human needs of refugees and immigrants; 2. Assure nondiscriminatory humanitarian aid and application of laws and policies; 3. Uphold full constitutional and civil rights for refugees and immigrants as well as U.S. citizens; 4. Protect the lives of persons; 5. Give special consideration to the needs of women, children, individuals with special needs, and the unification of families; 6. Combat vigorously any expression of racism either in policies or the implementation of them.

If you have any questions, please contact Elenora Giddings Ivory at (202) 543-1126