[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2637-S2639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           NEW WELFARE LAW HURTS MENTALLY DISABLED IMMIGRANTS

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, under the new welfare law, many mentally 
disabled legal immigrants will lose their SSI and AFDC benefits. As a 
result, some of these immigrants will be unable to pay their room and 
board at residential treatment facilities. They may be forced to live 
on the street, without enough money to buy their life-saving 
medication.
  Two cases demonstrate this problem. In the first case, Mr. X, a 
former officer in the South Vietnamese army, came to the US as a 
refugee in 1991. As a result of 12 years on the front lines of the 
Vietnam War, and 10 years of torture in a re-education camp, he suffers 
from serious mental illness. At the age of 54, he is too old to start 
over, learn a new language, and hold down a job.
  He receives treatment at a mental health center in California, and 
receives SSI. If his benefits are terminated, he will no longer have 
enough money to pay for his treatment. He is studying to pass the 
naturalization exam, but his memory impairment limits his ability to 
study.
  In the second case, a refugee from Vietnam receiving SSI has been 
diagnosed with schizophrenia, and relies heavily on medication. Without 
it, he hears voices, and cannot concentrate, follow instructions, or 
remember anything he learned. He receives $772 a month, of which $692 
goes for room and board at a residential facility. If his SSI benefits 
are cut off, he will be forced to leave the facility, and will be 
unable to pay for his medication.
  Unless Congress takes action, these stories will continue, and 
immigrants who need help for serious mental disabilities will be turned 
away from their treatment centers and residential facilities. I ask 
unanimous consent that two recent newspaper articles on this issue may 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                        [From the Miami Herald]

                          A Catastrophe Awaits

       In the rhetoric of Congress, welfare reform was to push the 
     able-bodied off the dole and into the work place. In the 
     reality of South Florida's legal immigrants--those who have 
     met every legal test for being here, but who now are cruelly 
     to the rejected--it bids to push the aged, the sick, and the 
     disabled off their balance and into the street. Or the grave.
       What awaits is a human tragedy. It is unwise, unfair, and 
     manifestly un-American. It will be felt in South Florida as 
     in few places in this, the nation made great by immigrants.
       Maria Cristina Rodriguez is 76 and a social worker at the 
     Little Havana Activities and Nutrition Center. She now runs 
     six support groups for anxious seniors. She can't forget the 
     79-year-old woman who--as talk of benefits cuts rolled radio 
     waves last year--jumped to her death from her subsidized 
     apartment. ``Here I finish,'' said her suicide note, ``before 
     they finish me.''
       Now the final countdown has started, and this kind of panic 
     is spreading. One day recently, 500 distressed seniors waited 
     for the local office of U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-
     Miami, to open. There they sought succor. But little was to 
     be had, Congress had spoken.

[[Page S2638]]

       Social-service agencies already are feeling the rising tide 
     of dread and demand. At the Little Havana Center, two 80-
     year-old women walked in with a written suicide pact. With no 
     family to turn to, and facing loss of their Supplemental 
     Security Income--their sole means of living--they thought it 
     best to kill themselves. Heed that, Congress.
       Would that this panic were overblown. It is not. Thanks to 
     last year's welfare-reform law, legal immigrants who are 
     destitute, sick, or aged will lose their federal assistance 
     beginning in August. Florida expects 115,000 immigrants to 
     lose life-sustaining benefits, principally food stamps and 
     SSI.
       The numbers in Dade are particularly frightening. Here, if 
     nothing is done, 80,000 legal immigrants--nearly twice the 
     number of Dade's U.S.-citizen ``welfare moms'' who'll lose 
     benefits in the next two years--will lose there life-line 
     support. That 80,000 includes more than 40,000 who get SSI--
     the cash aid for the most poor, aged, and disabled.
       The new welfare law did make some exceptions. Immigrants 
     who worked in the United States 10 years, were veterans of 
     the nation's armed forces, or who were admitted as refugees 
     or granted asylum may remain eligible for aid. For most legal 
     immigrants, though only citizenship offers a safety net.
       What the welfare law did not provide was any assistance for 
     those immigrants too old and infirm to document their work 
     history or other eligibility criteria. Not did it provide for 
     those already in the naturalization process. Nor did it allow 
     for those who, because of mental disability, are not legally 
     competent to take the citizenship oath. In this saddest of 
     categories, at least 5,000 immigrants will lose benefits in 
     Dade and Broward, says the Alliance for Aging, which 
     administers federal funds to 30 local agencies.
       U.S.-citizen Floridians transitioning from welfare to work 
     are getting two years and job training before their aid is 
     cut. In that light, the transition time offered legal 
     immigrants--a scant one year--its pathetic. It comes at a 
     time when the Miami Immigration and Naturalization Service 
     office has 90,000 cases to process, and becoming a citizen 
     can easily take 10 to 13 months. So even if the INS adds 70 
     new employees to process applications--a plan announced this 
     week--some legal immigrants could lose months of vital 
     benefits before becoming citizens and having their 
     eligibility restored.
       Picture Dade (and to a lesser extent Broward) after August. 
     Elderly legal immigrants evicted and homeless. Anxiety-
     provoked deaths and disease. Overwhelmed families and social-
     services agencies. For the economy, the loss of $200 to $300 
     million annually. It is a book of tragedy waiting to be 
     written not in chapters, but in paragraphs--each representing 
     a single, undeserved, preventable human tragedy.
       Many Floridians express concern, but few so far have taken 
     meaningful action. Some legislators have been searching for 
     solutions in Tallahassee and Washington. Governor Chiles has 
     been pressing for federal fixes as well. Area agencies are 
     cooperating in trying to think the unthinkable. Catholic 
     Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, for one, has been 
     trying to raise funds for a massive naturalization and 
     immigrant-assistance drive.
       Yet, altogether, inexplicably, with five months to go, 
     south Florida remains woefully undermobilized. (By 
     comparison, Los Angeles County, Calif, organized 200 agencies 
     and started a massive naturalization drive last October.)
       Unless superhuman efforts begin now, there won't be enough 
     time to avert the human carnage.
                                                                    ____


              [From the Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 27, 1997]

 After Decades, Uncle Sam Tells Elderly Noncitizens We Won't Help You 
               Anymore: Uncle Sam Rolling Up Welcome Mat

                           (By Patty Henetz)

       Federal lawmakers meant to be absolutely clear when they 
     ordered the end of public assistance to legal immigrants in 
     the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996.
       Just look at the bill's name. If questions remain, its 
     backers will spell it out: Come to America. But never forget 
     you are a guest and must pull your own weight.
       Rose Boyer assumed that responsibility when she emigrated 
     here from Lebanon 76 years ago. But the 92-year-old widow, 
     who has been in nursing homes for the past 30 years, can't 
     speak for herself because she has no idea what is going on 
     around here.
       Which may be just as well, since the letter she received 
     from the state the first week of December would have been 
     incomprehensible even if she did not suffer from dementia.
       The letter said her medical-assistance case would be closed 
     as of Dec. 31, 1996. Under new federal regulations, she is 
     not qualified to receive Medicaid benefits. The $2,700 her 
     nursing home received each month for her care would cease. 
     Incredibly, the government appeared to be telling her it was 
     time she quit shirking her responsibilities.
       At the same time, state Humane Services Director Robin 
     Arnold-Williams alerted Gov. Mike Leavitt that Boyer was 
     likely to lose her aid, as could several others. The governor 
     vowed to protect her--at least until August. ``He isn't going 
     to kick people out on the street because there was a line in 
     the regulation that said we had to,'' says Leavitt 
     spokeswoman Vicki Varela.
       So now, no legal immigrants will lose their Medicaid 
     protections. And if Leavitt, state humane services officials, 
     the immigrants' families and friends have their way, no one 
     will--even though on its face the federal law would have done 
     it otherwise.
       Rose Boyer's husband was naturalized in 1939 and died in 
     1946. She reared nine children, all U.S. citizens. She has 
     outlived one of them. Her youngest living child, Sandy 
     resident Louis Boyer, is 59. Her oldest son is retired and 
     ill; another lives on his Social Security payment of $500 per 
     month. The other three sons have diabetes. One has lost two 
     legs, another has lost one leg, and all three were blinded by 
     their disease. One daughter is a retired maid who can't walk 
     much anymore; the other daughter, a 61-year-old clerical 
     worker who wants to retire, also has difficulty walking.
       Louis Boyer helps out the five siblings who live in Utah.
       ``I try to do what I can,'' he says. ``I could pay for her 
     keep, but then I would be in trouble. Our family has a lot of 
     problems, but so far our mother is the only one on welfare. 
     It was a big shock to me when they said they were going to 
     kick her out.''
       Kris Mosley, Murray Care Center's social worker, was beyond 
     shock. ``I was furious,'' she says. ``I was screaming mad. 
     Who would want to discharge this little lady who can't walk, 
     can't talk, who can barely feed herself?''
       It may be difficult for affected families to take much 
     comfort in this, but Utah is getting off easy. The federal 
     welfare cuts are hammering more populous states, particularly 
     those on the coasts.
       Nationwide, 250,000 elderly immigrants are expected to lose 
     their food-stamp allotments. About 500,000 legal noncitizens, 
     the vast majority of them elderly, will lose their 
     Supplemental Security Income benefits. SSI is paid to 
     qualified people with severe disabilities. In California 
     alone, about 390,000 of the 2.7 million on Aid to Families 
     with Dependent Children are legal noncitizens.
       Utah officials are optimistic that few residents here will 
     be hurt by the new restrictions because the state can decide 
     whether to continue some benefits. Leaders are working to 
     avoid harming noncitizens who are in the country legally, 
     especially the most vulnerable elders on Medicaid.
       Last fall, the Utah departments of Health and Human 
     Services surveyed the rolls of legal noncitizens receiving 
     Medicaid and found that as many as 250 could be in jeopardy. 
     They examined ways to keep from cutting benefits and reduced 
     that list to 10 names. Further culling left only three people 
     ineligible for Medicaid, says Michael Diely, director of the 
     state Health Department's division of health-care financing. 
     Two are in nursing homes, one is at the state training 
     center.
       Legal noncitizens who receive food stamps will lose that 
     benefit April 1, and the state is not allowed to do anything 
     to continue it. Some 1,900 Utah legal noncitizens receiving 
     SSI are now under review; because SSI eligibility 
     requirements have become increasingly strict under the 
     reforms, hundreds stand to lose their disability pay.
       The Utah Legislature this session will consider a bill, the 
     Family Employment Program Bill, sponsored by Rep. Lloyd 
     Frandsen, R-South Jordan, that could provide noncitizen legal 
     residents with cash payments. And Leavitt has been asked to 
     take part in related negotiations with federal leaders during 
     the National Governors Association meeting next month.
       ``The whole issue of having a handful of people that we 
     need to take care of and the possibility of more down the 
     road demonstrates the need for more flexibility from the 
     federal government,'' Varela says.
       Many of the people affected by the reforms are noncitizens 
     who have not bothered to become naturalized. They are known 
     as PRUCOLS, or people residing in the country under color of 
     law. The Immigration and Naturalization Service knows and has 
     known they are here, but has made no move to deport them. 
     This group includes those who came to the country on 
     temporary or student visas and never left. They work here, 
     have families and pay taxes, have stayed beyond their legal 
     limit but have not been deemed illegal. Many of them are old, 
     and now, most of them are scared.
       Lorena Riffo, who heads the state Office of Hispanic 
     Affairs, says she is working with the federal Immigration and 
     Naturalization Service to assist the many older legal 
     noncitizens who have applied for citizenship since the 
     federal reforms were enacted. It may be possible, she says, 
     to allow people older than 65 to take the citizenship exam in 
     their native languages and in senior centers instead of INS 
     offices, which could quell anxieties.
       These measures won't help people who are incapable of 
     becoming citizens, such as Rose Boyer and Lia Andrienko.
       Andrienko's husband was one of the millions killed during 
     the Stalinist purges in the old Soviet Union. After her 
     husband was killed in 1938, she was ordered to leave Kiev or 
     risk death for having married an enemy of the state. Her 
     daughter was 1 year old. For most of her life, Mila 
     Andrienko, now Popova, kept her father's history a fearful 
     secret.
       In 1989, when it was possible, Mila and her husband, Oleg, 
     left Ukraine for the United States. Mila, who had been a 
     physician, now works as a medical assistant. Oleg, formerly a 
     civil engineer, delivers newspapers. In 1991, they sent for 
     Lia, who was 82 and without other family. She became ill with 
     dementia

[[Page S2639]]

     soon afterward. She would not sleep at night; her daughter 
     and son-in-law, who worked all day, stayed awake while Lia 
     roamed the house sobbing and tearing her clothes. ``For three 
     years, I did not sleep.'' says Popova. ``She did awful things 
     at night. I do not know why I didn't give her pills.''
       Finally, the Popova asked the state for help, Andrienko 
     went on Medicaid and moved into the Murray Care Center, where 
     Rose Boyer also lives. And like Rose Boyer, Andrienko got a 
     letter in December telling her--though she could not 
     understand--that her time on American medical assistance had 
     run out.
       ``When I received this letter, I cried,'' says Popova. 
     ``What will I do? I cannot leave my job to care for her. And 
     Kris (Mosley) said `We will fight. We will fight.'''
       Social worker Mosley has been fighting since the letters 
     came. The promise Leavitt made to protect the three legal 
     noncitizens who otherwise would lose their Medicaid is good 
     until August. Mosley is on an ad hoc committee trying to 
     figure out how to extend the protection. ``One answer is to 
     go through the deportment process, with an attorney,'' she 
     says. A judge could find it absurd to send Rose Boyer back to 
     Lebanon more than seven decades after she left and issue a 
     `suspension of deportation,' which would allow her to stay on 
     Medicaid. Lia Andrienko could apply for political asylum, but 
     probably wouldn't get it, leaving the Popovas to pay for care 
     they simply cannot afford.
       ``Their answer is not a pretty one,'' Mosley says. ``Under 
     all the guidelines, no matter what piece of paperwork I fill 
     out, I cannot change their alien status.''
       Naturally, Louis Boyer is worried. ``My mother needs 24-
     hour care. I wouldn't be able to take care of her,'' he says. 
     ``I don't know why she never became a citizen. She went to 
     school here, but never finished her education because she was 
     barefoot and pregnant for so many years. She must have 
     figured that with her husband and her children all citizens, 
     it was no big deal. She entered the country legally, but she 
     never had a green card. She has a Social Security card, given 
     to her in 1972.''
       Popova doesn't know what is going to happen with her 
     mother. She certainly can't go back to Ukraine. For now, 
     Popova consoles herself with her sense of gratitude and good 
     luck at being in the United States.
       ``Every time I am in the nursing home, I say, `Bless 
     America. Bless these people,''' she says. ``I am happy 
     because my family is happy here. I am an American.''

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