Welfare Bill Severely Curtails Public Assistance to Noncitizens

On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal ResponsibUity and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Welfare Act), Pub. L. No. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105 (Aug. 22, 1996); on September 30, he signed an omnibus spending bill that incorporates the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (Immigration Reform Act). Together, these bills completely overhaul a welfare system that has been in place since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal was implemented. They not only end the guarantee of cash assistance to the country's poorest chUdren and give states the power to run their own welfare and workfare programs with lump sums of funds, they severely restrict the benefits for which legal, and illegal, immigrants are currendy eligible. The bills were drafted in response to an anti-immigrant sentiment that has become pervasive over the past several years, inducing congressional leaders to enact new rules for eligibility and sponsor? ship agreements in order to assure that aliens be self-reliant in accordance with national immigration policy. ? 400(5) of the Welfare Act. It is a widely held belief that aliens, particularly illegal aliens, come to the United States to find work and, if they are not successful, to join the ranks of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens who receive welfare to support them? selves and their families. Congress concluded that restricting the availabdity of public benefits would remove the incentive for illegal immigration. Most benefits programs currendy allow access only to lawful permanent residents (LPRs), who are essentially precluded from receiving such benefits for at least three years, and to those aliens who are permanendy residing in the United States color of law (PRUCOL). Under the welfare bill, most future immigrants will be barred from applying for benefits under programs for their first five years in the United States. Since the definition of federal means-tested was removed from the final version of the