As we discussed in an earlier issue, a sizeable portion of the welfare cuts affecting immigrants from last year’s Welfare Bill are expected to be restored as part of the budget pact between Congress and the President. On July 29th, the details of the deal were released with some more pleasant news for those seeking a restoration of benefits to immigrants.
In May when the initial deal was penned, it appeared that only disabled immigrants would receive Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”) benefits. The new deal will include elderly as well as disabled immigrants. Furthermore, persons who became disabled after the law went into effect last August will continue to be eligible for benefits. However, such assistance will only be available to persons actually in the country as of August 1996. Those arriving after will not be eligible for any SSI assistance.
The new bill also allows persons in the country before August 1996 to remain eligible to receive Medicaid. Those arriving after that date will not be eligible.
Food Stamps and other assistance programs are not affected by the budget deal. The ability to receive housing assistance, a serious issue for elderly immigrants in expensive nursing homes not entirely covered by Medicaid, is still not firmly resolved and the new budget deal does not mention whether housing assistance is supposed to have been covered by last year’s Welfare Law.
The budget deal also includes provisions which will extend from five to seven years the amount of time refugees can collect Medicaid and SSI benefits. This extension is seen as being crucial since in many areas it is taking two years for citizenship applications to be approved. Refugees are only eligible to become naturalized citizens after they have been here five years.
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