[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.''

____________________