With thousands of refugees and asylees facing a critical loss of benefits within the year, President George W. Bush has proposed an extension to the upcoming deadline.

A 1997 welfare law required all asylees and refugees who entered the US after 1996 to become citizens in seven years or lose their monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) checks.  In the President’s proposed budget plan, he says that people who legally have been in the country seven years should have an additional year before they lose their benefits.

However, since the $93 million budget item would not even become law until October, the extension will be too late for thousands of elderly and disabled immigrants.  Also, even if the extension helped to curb the immediate crisis, the problem would resurface next year.  Immigration advocates believe that there should not be such a restriction on asylees and refugees because they are in the country legally and are facing lengthy delays to become a citizen.

The time period to become a citizen is short considering that federal law only allows 10,000 asylees to become permanent citizens each year.  That limitation is not even factoring in problems with backlogs in immigration applications.  Some asylum seekers are now waiting 16 years to apply for citizenship.

In Florida, a state with a large number of those affected, the numbers are astounding.  In the Miami federal asylum office, 6,000 applicants from 1995 are waiting for an interview.  Once approved, they must wait 10 years in order to become a permanent resident.

Four thousand people have lost their SSI benefits since September, with 8,000 more expected to lose their benefits this year.  With the loss of eligibility for the SSI benefits comes the loss of eligibility for Medicare.

Administration officials say that the extension, even if implemented, will not be retroactive.