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URBAN INSTITUTE RELEASES STUDY ON IMMIGRANTS WELFARE USE
The 1996 Welfare Reform Act and the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act created many restrictions on legal immigrants’ access to welfare benefits, created time limits on refugees’ eligibility for benefits, and created new bars to illegal immigrants’ access to benefits. Even more damaging than the outright changes in eligibility, according to the Urban Institute, is the "chilling effect which may discourage immigrants from using health, nutrition, or other types of benefits, despite the fact that many remain eligible." In a new report, the Institute looks at national trends in immigrants’ use of welfare benefits during the period from 1994 to 1997.
According to the report, the overall drop in the use of welfare was greater in noncitizen households (35%) than in citizen households (14%). Refugees’ use of benefits fell by 33%, despite the fact that most remained eligible. While noncitzens leaving welfare accounted for 23% of the drop in overall welfare use, noncitizens accounted for only 9% of all people using welfare in 1994. 
Noncitizens used welfare at a higher rate than citizens in both 1994 and 1997. Among households earning less than 200% of the poverty level, in 1994 the rate of use was the same among citizens and noncitizens; by 1997, however, the rate of use by noncitizens was lower than that of citizens. 
The study also found that little of the decline of noncitizens’ use of welfare could be attributed to rising incomes or naturalization.