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PRESIDENT CLINTON SEEKS TO EXTEND FEDERAL AID TO LEGAL IMMIGRANTS WHO WERE CUT OFF IN 1996
The Clinton Administration has proposed spending $ 1.3 billion over five years to restore welfare benefits to legal immigrants who lost benefits as a result of the Republican-led welfare reform legislation passed in 1996. While the proposed funds would not fully restore benefits to their previous levels, another 132,000 immigrants will be covered.
Since agreeing to welfare reform in 1996, both the President and Congress have worked to extend benefits to some of those cut off in 1996. In large part, the drive to restore benefits has been the result of growing political pressure from immigrants, who are voting in larger than ever numbers. Pressure has also come directly from states with large immigrant populations, such as California and New Jersey.
Details of the proposal were included in the President's budget, released on February 1, 1999. The plan would extend benefits to immigrants who arrived in the U.S. after August of 1996, when the current federal welfare reform rules went into effect, and cover almost all legal immigrants. Those who would be immediately benefited are about 70,000 legal immigrants who were either disabled after entering the U.S. or who turned 65 after entry. States would also be given the option of providing health coverage to approximately 55,000 legal immigrant children and prenatal care to 23,000 legal immigrant women who arrived in the U.S. after 1996.
The proposed budget also includes $ 70 million for states to improve their English language instruction facilities. The proposal would integrated the teaching of English into instruction about U.S. history and government, as will as information about economic life in the U.S.
Republicans are generally opposed to the new measures, but because of their perceived, and perhaps deserved, anti-immigrant stance, and their increasing unpopularity with immigrants they are hesitant to speak out against the administration's proposal. The Republicans current vulnerability on immigration and welfare issues may make them unwilling to oppose the measure, giving it a good chance of passing.