Immigrants’ access to public benefits and
work supports raises difficult challenges that bear on federalism, equity,
budget, and integration issues. While legal immigrants had
historically been eligible for benefits on the same terms as citizens,
these rules changed with the 1996 Welfare Reform law.
The 1996 Welfare Reform law changed the landscape and represented
a major departure in welfare and integration policy in the United
States. Prior to the law’s enactment, legal immigrants were
eligible for public benefits on more or less the same terms as citizens.
Following the law’s enactment and subsequent amendment, most
legal immigrants arriving after 1996 are barred for at least five
years from the core federal safety net programs: Food Stamps, Medicaid
and the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Temporary Assistance
to Needy Families Program (TANF), and the Supplemental Security Income
Program (SSI).
While reforms to the 1996 law have basically restored benefits to
legal permanent residents in the United States before 1996, over 40 percent of immigrants with green cards arrived after that date.
Some states have replaced federal health and other benefits by subsidizing
service programs with their own funds. These subsidies, although
voluntarily borne, can be seen as a form of federal cost shift. |
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