[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 5677]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF RESTORING FOOD STAMPS ELIGIBILITY FOR 
                       LEGAL PERMANENT RESIDENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 24, 2002

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the importance of 
restoring food stamps eligibility to legal permanent residents. In 
1996, Congress stripped legal immigrants of eligibility for food stamps 
and a variety of other benefits. As a step in the right direction, 
President Bush proposed to restore food stamps benefits to low income 
legal immigrants. The President's position on this issue makes sense. 
The food stamps program is a critical safety net that allows working 
men and women to feed their families during hard times. All a household 
needs to qualify is a low income. However, thousands of legal resident 
families go hungry each day.
  Legal residents pay taxes and their labor helps drive the economy. 
Yet, even hard working families may have a difficult time putting food 
on the table. A recent study by the Urban Institute found that 36 
percent of New York City's limited English Proficiency households, 
during the previous year, had been unable to acquire adequate food at 
one time or the other. Food stamps can help provide these needy 
families with a temporary safety net during difficult times. Hunger 
does not limit itself to U.S. citizenship. Therefore, we should not 
create a policy to systematically deny food to needy tax paying 
immigrants in this country.
  But when the conferees to the Farm Bill met last week, Republicans 
did just that. They crafted a food stamp provision that essentially 
denies benefits to legal permanent residents of the United States, even 
though this position is in direct opposition to the President's 
proposal of restoring food stamps to low income immigrants who lived in 
the U.S. for at least five years. The Republicans' food stamp proposal 
is much more restrictive and would severely limit legal resident's 
eligibility and basically punish them for being non-citizens. It is 
unfortunate that the President's own party is undermining a bi-partisan 
effort to help feed the working poor.
  Recently, Republicans fashioned themselves as being pro-Hispanics. At 
the same time the Republicans were courting the Hispanic vote, they 
were cutting assistance that would help needy working legal immigrant 
families put food on the table. Democrats have fought for equal rights 
and just treatment for immigrants, as well as for restoring benefits to 
immigrant workers. If Republicans were really concerned about the 
immigrant community, they would restore food stamps eligibility for 
legal permanent residents.

                          ____________________