Catholic Charities USA Urges Congress to Give States Flexibility To Restore Immigrant Eligibility for Temporary Assistance Programs

3/5/2002

From: Shelley Borysiewicz of Catholic Charities USA, 703-549-1390, ext. 147 E-mail: sborysiewicz@catholiccharitiesusa.org

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 5 -- Catholic Charities USA is calling on Congress and the Administration to give states the flexibility they need to serve legal immigrants in their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs, and to allow legal immigrants to access important work supports including Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and food stamps.

Under current law, individuals who are legal residents and arrived in the United States after August 22, 1996, are barred for five years from receiving publicly means-tested benefits, including TANF, Medicaid, SCHIP, and food stamps. These provisions were included in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which must be reauthorized this year.

"We know that legal immigrants who come to this country want to work. Furthermore, given the strict work requirements in current law, they could not receive TANF benefits if they were unwilling to work," said Sharon M. Daly, vice president for social policy for Catholic Charities USA. "It is sound public policy to allow legal immigrants to access temporary benefits that can help them weather temporary downturns in their economic situations. This is particularly true now that the TANF program funds a wide range of work support programs, including child care, job training, and transportation assistance."

Daly pointed out that legal immigrants make a significant contribution to the American economy. Research conducted by the National Academy of Sciences shows that the average immigrant contributes $1,800 each year more in taxes than he or she costs federal, state and local governments. "Immigrants pay taxes to support services to others. It makes no sense to declare that hard-working taxpayers who are lawfully present in this country should be denied access to temporary assistance programs that can help them survive," she said.

Daly also noted that restrictions on legal immigrant parents have a negative impact on their citizen children. "More than one in five children in poverty have at least one immigrant parent. We cannot address the problem of child poverty without ensuring that legal immigrant parents have access to important programs-including welfare-to-work programs and work supports-that can help them improve their ability to support their family."

Other TANF Policy Reforms Additional TANF reauthorization priorities supported by Catholic Charities USA include: -- broadening the goals of the TANF program to include poverty reduction; -- increasing the funding for the TANF block grant and providing an automatic adjustment for inflation; -- removing barriers to two-parent families accessing TANF and supporting the formation of strong and healthy families; -- allowing states to automatically provide individuals leaving welfare for work with one full year of transitional Medicaid and food stamp benefits; -- helping individuals leaving welfare for work move up the economic ladder, including increasing access to education and training; -- increasing the availability of child care assistance for low-income families and improving the quality of child care; and -- allowing states to pass through more child support payments directly to current and former TANF recipients.

Catholic Charities USA's members -- 1,400 local agencies and institutions -- provide services to nearly 9.5 million people in need each year regardless of religious, social, or economic backgrounds. Catholic Charities agencies provide social services ranging from adoption and counseling to food and housing.