On May 2, the Senate approved the Immigration Control and Financial Responsibility Act (S. 1664), by a vote of 97–3. Voting against the bill were Bob Graham (D-Fla.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Paul Simon (D-Ill.). There was an early attempt by the Democrats to force a vote on the minimum wage increase as part of this bill, but they eventually decided not to pursue that strategy and did not block its consideration.
Although the bill is referred to as the illegal immigration bill, it contains numerous provisions that affect legal immigrants. One such provision would attribute a sponsor’s income to the legal immigrant for eligibility purposes in most federal means-tested programs, known as deeming, and would change the length of the deeming period for those programs that now require it.
Under current law, only three programs, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Food Stamps, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), require deeming. AFDC and Food Stamps requires it for three years, and SSI has a five-year requirement until the end of this fiscal year. The SSI restriction does not apply if the individual becomes disabled after entry. The Food Stamps restriction does not apply if the immigrant’s sponsor is receiving Food Stamps.
Under the Senate bill, the deeming requirement would extend to most federal means-tested programs. This could cover a wide variety of programs such as Medicaid, including emergency services; immunizations and other public health programs; child care; Head Start; nutrition programs for the elderly; housing; and job training.
This provision would affect both current residents and new immigrants. For current residents, the deeming period will apply for five years or until citizenship. For new immigrants, it would be until citizenship. There is an exemption for immigrants who work 40 qualifying quarters.
Ironically, some of the programs from which legal immigrants could be made ineligible due to deeming, such as emergency Medicaid services, Head Start and immunizations, would be available to illegal immigrants under the Senate bill.
In contrast, the House bill, the Immigration In the National Interest Act (H. 2202), exempts all programs that are available to illegal immigrants from the deeming requirement for legal immigrants. Additionally, the new deeming requirements do not apply to current residents.
NACo joined the National Conference of States Legislatures (NCSL) and the National League of Cities (NLC) in supporting a number of amendments that would have mitigated the impact of these requirements on local and state governments. The U. S. Conference of Mayors also supported these amendments. Regardless of the size of their immigrant population, this mandate would require all county agencies that administer any federal means-tested program to verify citizenship status, immigration status, sponsorship status, sponsor’s income and length of time in the United States.
A study by NCSL estimated that extending these requirements to just 10 programs would cost $744 million in new administrative burdens, which the organizations consider to be an unfunded mandate.
Many of the amendments were sponsored by Senator Graham. One, which would have clarified which programs would be subject to deeming, was cosponsored by Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). There were also amendments by Senators John Chafee (R-R.I.), Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Paul Simon (D-Ill.)
Unfortunately, all of the amendments that would have eased this administrative burden failed.
Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), one of the bill’s sponsors, however, did make some concessions and exempted some programs from the deeming requirement. These programs include School Lunch, Child Nutrition and Emergency Food Assistance. The amendment also exempts spouses and children who are “battered or subjected to extreme cruelty.”
Another provision that the organizations opposed would impose new federal requirements on documents issued by state and local governments such as drivers licenses and birth certificates. These new requirements include the use of tamper proof paper for certified copies of birth certificates and including Social Security number on drivers licenses. In addition, federal agencies would be given wide discretion to mandate other requirements through regulation. NACo, NCSL, and NLC opposed these provisions because they are unfunded mandates, and because they pre-empt state and local authority.
The drivers license and birth certificate requirements were scored by the Congressional Budget Office as violating the unfunded mandates threshold. As a result, Senator Simpson made some changes that included delaying and extending the implementation dates over a number of years so that the $50 million threshold would not be reached.
The changes, however, did not address the issue of pre-emption of state and local law, and still would have still represented significant costs. Also unchanged was the broad federal authority to impose additional requirements through regulation without congressional review.
For these reasons the three organizations supported a bipartisan amendment by Senators Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.), Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) and Feingold to strike these provisions from the bill.
This amendment was offered in conjunction with a proposal to delete from the bill a pilot program that would require employers to verify the status of prospective employees through a hotline system. Other cosponsors included Senators Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Connie Mack (R-Fla.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Don Nickles (R-Okla.)
The amendment was defeated by a relatively close margin (54 –46), and it drew an interesting group of senators voting in favor, which ranged from the most conservative to the most liberal members of the Senate.
The bills now move to conference where representatives from the House and Senate will try to reach accommodation, but neither chamber has appointed conferees yet. Meanwhile for counties, the major conference challenge will be to minimize the effect of the deeming provisions and birth certificate and drivers licenses requirements.
Once the bill is enacted into law, the next obstacle will be the regulatory process, particularly defining how deeming will be implemented and which requirements will be added to birth certificates and other documents.