The battle to save welfare "as we know it" was lost with the signing of HR 3734 by President Clinton on Aug. 22. On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, Clinton ended six decades of federal responsibility for helping the nation's poor in approving what many termed, "welfare repeal."

Legal immigrant children and families will be hit hardest by the new law. Of the $54 million in welfare savings expected over the next six years, $24 billion will come from denying benefits to legal immigrants. About half a million immigrants are expected to lose access to Supplemental Security Income, and about 900,000 will lose access to Food Stamps. Immigrants will begin losing Food Stamp benefits April 1, 1997.

Women's and welfare rights groups predict that the bill will throw 1 million more children into poverty. Under this law no individual or family is entitled by federal law to receive welfare assistance. The new law abolishes Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the main federal public assistance program, which provides monthly cash benefits to 12.8 million people, including more than 8 million children. Gone also will be the JOBS program and Emergency Assistance to Families with Children.

These programs are replaced with block grants of federal funds given to states. While states must provide some assistance, programs need not be uniform across the state, and there is no explicit requirement that families get cash aid. States can also choose to contract out the administration of the programs to other entities such as private charities and/or church organizations.

The new law also allows state governments more discretion to design their own programs to deny benefits to immigrants and move welfare recipients into jobs.

Block grant funds can only be used to provide a total of 5 years of assistance in a lifetime to a family. Minor parents are required to live at home or in another adult-supervised setting to receive federal funds. Recipients must participate in work activities within two years of receiving aid, or face a reduction or loss of the family's assistance.

Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund and a long-time friend of the Clintons, called the bill's enactment "a moment of shame" and joined others in saying President Clinton's support of the GOP measure had more to do with winning re-election than in reforming the nation's public assistance programs.

IMPACT ON IMMIGRANTS

The law most immediately denies SSI and Food Stamp programs to immigrants, and states can also decide to deny AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) and Medicare, the programs most used, to legal immigrants.

Undocumented immigrants, already restricted from most federal aid programs, were hit again, and are now ineligible for all federal programs, except select emergency medical services, some immunization programs, and some non-monetary benefits from certain programs, yet to be defined. SSI and Food Stamps will only be available to citizens, veterans and residents who have paid social security for at least 40 quarters, or a minimum of 10 years.

Benefits to legal immigrants stop one month after their eligibility is reviewed, which should happen in the next year. If benefits are denied, an appeal process is possible.

Clinton's actions immediately prompted criticism from within the ranks of the Democratic Party. Convention speeches from such Democratic Party stalwarts as Mario Cuomo, Jesse Jackson, Gloria Steinem and Health and Human Services head Donna Shalala were "tolerated" in carefully crafted statements. Their main message was that Clinton was pushed into signing this extreme piece of legislation by a maverick Congress. They claimed that the best way to soften the blow of this law was to change Congress, to enable Democrats to pass legislation in the next Congress to "fix" the worrisome parts of the law. Shalala "promised" that if re-elected Clinton would restore benefits to legal immigrants.

Calling the welfare law "inhumane and indecent," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York City promised to sue the federal government to block a provision of the law that encourages city employees to turn in illegal immigrants who seek services like police protection, hospital care and public education.

Claiming that the provision was deliberately designed to overturn "non-cooperation with immigration agents" policies passed in many major cities over the last 15 years, Giuliani asserted that the law violated the U.S. Constitution and would "create chaos in New York City". He fears that the city's estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants may be afraid to send their children to public schools, report crimes, or seek treatment for contagious diseases in city hospitals.

Mary Jo Bane and Peter B. Edelman, both Assistant Secretaries at the Department of Health and Human Services, left Sept. 12 in protest of the bill. Edelman stated: "I have devoted the last 30+ years...to helping reduce poverty in America. I believe the recently enacted welfare bill goes in the opposite direction." Another official, Wendell E. Primus, who resigned in July, said that "to remain would be to disown all the analysis my office has produced regarding the impact of this bill." His studies estimated that the law would push more than a million children into poverty.

RESISTANCE

Opposition to the welfare bill has formed on several fronts: San Francisco's County Health Department said it would ignore the provisions of the welfare law that require health department employees to ask for, check and report people who cannot prove their citizenship.

The American Civil Liberties Union and several other public interest legal groups are analyzing the 500-page welfare reform document for possible civil rights violations. Unequal treatment and privacy are only two of many legal issues they are studying.

The rise in citizenship applications and voter registration has also been attributed, in part to the welfare bill's attacks on legal immigrants. In San Francisco, California officials are considering funding a citizenship drive to safeguard immigrant's social service benefits and save the city millions of dollars. Santa Clara County (California) Supervisors voted in September to spend $140,000 to help eligible legal immigrants become U.S. citizens, get jobs and federal social service benefits.

WHAT TO DO:

• get educated about the new law; for training opportunities:
  National Immigrant Law Center (NILC) in Washington, D.C. at 202/776-0470 or in Los Angeles at 213/938-6452; No. Cal. Coalition for Immigrant Rights , 510/243-8215 Immigrant Legal Resource Center at 415/255-9499, and National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights at 510/465-1984
  
• join/support local efforts to resist the law
  
• encourage/help immigrants
  
• apply for citizenship
  
• help register immigrants to vote
  
• if you are a citizen, vote November 5th for pro-immigrant rights candidates and policies