Extracted text

OCR Page 1 of 79
Members of the Clinton adminis- tration welfare task force have held The package of welfare changes internal discussions about cutting unveiled last month by House Re- welfare benefits to noncitizens in this publicans proposed ending welfare country legally as an option to fund for most noncitizens under 75 years welfare reform programs, according age. That cutback would be im- to administration sources. plemented after a one-year adjust- The issue is so potentially divi- ment period and would save as sive that the 33-member interagen- much as $8 billion in the fifth year, cy task force that has been drafting according to a Congressional Bud- welfare reform options made no get Office estimate. PHOTOCOPY PRESERVATION mention of noncitizens in its most The congressional analysts said recent draft, which is confidential. that in the five years, halting aid to The group is drawing up options for noncitizens would save $9.4 billion President Clinton to consider as he in Supplemental Security Income, attempts to put into practice his $8.1 billion in Medicaid, $2.8 billion campaign pledge to "end welfare as in food stamps and $1 billion in we know it." AFDC. A total of 61 federal welfare White House domestic policy ad- programs would be denied to most THE WASHINGTON POST viser Bruce Reed, a co-chairman of legal immigrants, the main excep- the task force, declined to comment tion being emergency Medicaid ser- Clinton Task Force Weighs Cutting Welfare on the discussions about welfare vices. benefits for noncitizens, saying it Republican strategists in Con- was "premature" to talk about fund- gress said that if the administration ing measures before the task force proposed a package of welfare re- completed its work on broad policy forms without cutting benefits to changes. noncitizens, they would make it a However, administration sources major issue in the welfare debate. said that reducing benefits paid to Under current law, an immigrant noncitizens has been discussed ex- can qualify for benefits after a Benefits to Noncitizens tensively among some task force three-year period during which his members as a potential source of or her sponsors-often the children money for costly reforms. Among of elderly parents-are deemed these is a proposal to create com- liable for support. munity service jobs for welfare re- Proposals have ranged from ex- cipients who are forced off the rolls tending the sponsors' liability to 15 at the end of a proposed two-year years, as suggested by the conser- time limit for public assistance. vative Heritage Foundation, to The sources said that as a House eliminating it altogether except for Republican welfare reform plan, the most elderly recipients, as pro- which includes cutting aid to legal posed in the bill by House Repub- immigrants, advances next year, licans. the administration is likely to come Critics of the current system say under increasing pressure to pub- that many elderly immigrants spon- licly address the issue. Clinton has sored by their children apply for taken no public position on it so far. Supplemental Security Income and Affected would be hundreds of other benefits during their first thousands of legal immigrants, ref- three years here and start receiving ugees and other noncitizens who benefits as soon as the period in are added to the welfare rolls each which their sponsors are deemed year and who, according to the Con- liable ends. gressional Budget Office, will re- During a bitter debate on the issue ceive $21.3 billion in federal public in the House in October, Republicans assistance funds in four major cat- brandished a Ways and Means Com- egories in the next five years. mittee document showing that the The categories are Supplemental number of immigrants receiving Sup- Security Income, Medicaid, food plemental Security Income benefits A10 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1993 stamps and Aid to Families With increased fivefold between 1982 and CLINTON LIBRARY PHOTOCOPY Dependent Children (AFDC), the 1992, when immigrants accounted main cash assistance program. for 11 percent of the total 5.5 million Other estimates of combined such beneficiaries. state and federal assistance for le- About two-thirds of the immi- gal noncitizens range as high as $11 grants receiving aid live in Califor- billion a year. nia, New York and Florida, and In addition, illegal aliens are es- most come from Mexico, the Phil- timated to cost the government $2 ippines, Cuba, the former Soviet billion more a year in federal public Union and China. assistance, although those costs are In 1992, immigrants admitted to difficult to assess because they of- the United States numbered ten involve deception. Undocu- 810,635, about 445,000 of whom mented immigrants are ineligible were sponsored by family members. for public assistance, although their The House debate in October U.S.-born children can receive ben- was marked by emotionally charged efits. exchanges between lawmakers-a