Hon. Max Baucus
Chairman
Senate Finance Committee
219 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Hon. Charles Grassley
Ranking Member
Senate Finance Committee
203 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Re: Restoring Benefits for Legal Immigrants in TANF Reauthorization
Dear Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley:
We write to you on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to urge you to support efforts to restore benefits for legal immigrants as the Committee considers reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program.
Legal immigrants pay taxes, serve in the armed forces and are subject to the military draft. There is no legitimate reason they should be denied public services for which their taxes have paid. Yet severe restrictions on benefits for legal immigrants were adopted in 1996. These restrictions applied to a host of programs, not just TANF.
President Clinton supported welfare reform despite strong opposition from many organizations, including ACLU. However, President Clinton also made clear that he ""strongly disagreed"" with immigrant restrictions, saying that they ""have nothing to do with the fundamental purpose of welfare reform.""[1] Earlier this year, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich agreed, saying, ""In a law that has reduced welfare by more than 50 percent, this is one of those provisions that went too far. In retrospect, it was wrong.""[2]
Current restrictions on immigrant access to benefits include (1) outright bans on assistance for a specific period, and (2) rules that restrict eligibility for benefits by ""deeming"" that the income of an immigrant's sponsor is available to the immigrant, even when that is not in fact true.
As you consider legislation reauthorizing the TANF program, we urge you to heed the bipartisan consensus that restrictions adopted in 1996 ""went too far"" and adopt the broadest possible restoration of benefits for legal immigrants. In particular, we urge you to adopt proposals that:
- Eliminate the five year bar on legal immigrant eligibility for TANF,
- Reduce the current requirement of ten years of sponsor ""deeming"" and liability, to no more than three years, without problematic language that could make the ""deeming"" requirements even more onerous,
- Restore eligibility for the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, with no more than five years of sponsor ""deeming"",[3]
- Provide that instruction in English as a Second Language (ESL) counts as a direct ""work activity"" for purposes of TANF, permitting immigrants to use ESL classes to satisfy their work requirements, and
- Provide benefits to immigrant pregnant women and children under Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), without deeming restrictions.
Ultimately, we support complete elimination of the unfair restrictions adopted in 1996, including a problematic definition of ""unqualified"" immigrants that excludes many legal as well as undocumented immigrants from needed public assistance. Nevertheless, adoption of the above measures would undo some of the injustice of the 1996 laws.
As President Clinton said, punishing legal immigrants had ""nothing to do"" with the goal of reforming welfare. Many Republicans now agree these restrictions ""went too far."" The time to remedy this injustice is now.
Sincerely,
Laura W. Murphy
Director, ACLU Washington National Office
Timothy H. Edgar
ACLU Legislative Counsel
LaShawn Warren
ACLU Legislative Counsel
Cc: Members of the Senate Finance Committee
ENDNOTES
[1] Remarks by President Clinton at the Welfare Reform Bill Signing, Aug. 22, 1996.
[2] Robert Pear, White House Seeking to Restore Food Stamp Aid for Noncitizens, N.Y. Times, Jan. 10, 2002. The plan to restore food stamps to immigrants was enacted this year in the Farm Security Act. Restoring food stamps to immigrants received the strong, bipartisan backing of the House, in a 244-171 vote on a motion to instruct conferees. (Roll Call No. 106).
[3] Some have proposed further study of the effects of SSI restrictions on immigrant populations. Further study is not needed. Hardship among immigrant families as a result of the 1996 restrictions, including the restrictions on SSI, is well documented. See Randy Capps, Hardship among Children of Immigrants: Findings from the 1996 National Survey of America's Families, New Federalism Issue Brief No. B-29 (Urban Institute Feb. 2001), available at http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/anf_b29.pdf.