April 23 marked the 100th day before legal immigrants are scheduled to lose Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits as a result of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. The restoration of these benefits is one of NACo's top legislative priorities.
In the last few weeks, many members of Congress have been paying greater attention to the consequences of this action. One of the best signs of progress on this front has been an increase in bipartisan activity. For example, earlier this month three Republican senators, John Chafee (R.I.), Al D'Amato (N.Y.), Mike DeWine (Ohio), and three Democrats, Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), Daniel Patrick Moynihan (N.Y.) introduced legislation to restore food stamp and SSI eligibility to those lawful permanent residents who were receiving benefits as of Aug. 22, 1996 and to refugees who were in the country as of that date.
This is the first bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate, and is significant since three of its cosponsors are members of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction for SSI.
This renewed interest in the plight of the legal immigrant comes on the heels of emerging stories about the impact of these lost benefits on individuals.
To help bring even more attention to this issue, County News will run a series outlining the effect on specific counties and individuals. The first county to be featured is Los Angeles County,Calif. which has the largest number of individuals who may lose benefits.
Los Angeles County has 139,000 noncitizens who receive SSI and the state SSI supplement. The county estimates that 99,000 of these will lose benefits. Since counties in California also have full responsibility for providing general assistance, this loss of benefits will mean a direct increase in county costs, estimated at $236 million a year.
Nearly one-third of the county's noncitizen SSI participants are over 75 years of age, and 7,000 are over 85 years of age. A large number (20,000) have been in the country more than 20 years.
It is often argued that the immigrant's sponsor should provide for that individual. In Los Angeles County, however, about 36,000 of the SSI recipients did not have sponsors. Even in cases where legal immigrants have sponsors, the affidavits of support that were signed by those sponsors are not binding.
While some of these individuals may, a become naturalized citizens, many may not be able to do so because they are too disabled to take a meaningful oath of citizenship.
In the Los Angeles area, the naturalization process now takes an average of at least nine months. So, unless a noncitizen applied for naturalization by November or December of 1996, he or she may not make the naturalization cut-off date.
The following are some individual stories of Los Angeles County, Calif. residents who may lose SSI benefits:
This 54-year-old former Vietnamese army officer came to the United States in 1991 as part of a government-sponsored program to assist former army officers and their families.
Wounded in battle and imprisoned in South Vietnam for more than 10 years, he suffered both physical and psychological abuse. Because of his resulting psychiatric and neurological disorders, he has great difficulty with everyday living tasks and will most likely be unable to pass a citizenship test.
Mrs. A. is 56 years old. She has lived in the United States since 1970. She worked from 1971 to 1978, but had to quit work as result of health problems. She has had three strokes and is partially paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. She has no sponsor or family to support her. She relies on an in-home support services provider to help her with daily activities. Because the state in-home support services program is based on SSI eligibility, she will also lose this assistance.
Shendlya K., age 71, came to the United States as a political refugee from the former Soviet Union in 1990. She is widowed and has lost her only daughter. After entering the United States, her diabetes worsened, and as a result, her kidneys began to fail. She is now on weekly dialysis for renal failure.
(Information based on reports by the Los Angeles County, Calif. Department of Public Social Services.)