GOP May Agree to Restore Some Noncitizen Aid

WASHINGTON — Faced with a powerful backlash from immigrants and their advocates, Republican lawmakers are on the brink of restoring at least some of the benefits taken away from legal immigrants by last year’s welfare reform law.

As the White House and congressional leaders hammer out details of a balanced-budget package, Republicans are ready to soften the impact of welfare reform on the 500,000 legal immigrants, 41% of them Californians, who are scheduled to lose disability payments as early as this August.

While intensive negotiations continued Thursday, congressional sources said that Republicans, who only three months ago were vowing that they would not reopen the welfare debate, have agreed to provide about $10 billion over five years to continue disability benefits to most legal immigrant noncitizens who were in the country and receiving disability payments when the welfare bill was signed on Aug. 22, 1996.

Under the plan tentatively agreed upon, about 266,200 of the 321,720 Californians who stood to lose Supplementary Security Income benefits beginning in August would continue to receive them. Elderly noncitizens who are not considered to be disabled--about one-third of the aged on the rolls nationally--would still have their SSI benefits cut under the plan.

While the proposed package falls short of the Clinton administration’s original $15-billion request for restored benefits, GOP lawmakers and immigrant advocates acknowledged that the Republican position represents a remarkable turnabout.

It came, they said, after GOP members of Congress were put on the defensive by Democrats--as well as by some of the nation’s most prominent Republican governors. And it followed an intensive campaign by immigrant groups to tell the often heart-rending stories of frail, elderly and disabled noncitizens who were set to lose their only means of support. According to published reports, the bill has driven some elderly immigrants to suicide and prompted nursing homes across the nation to turn away noncitizens regardless of their circumstances.

Republican leaders and the party’s rank-and-file came to fear that refusing to restore the benefits would hurt Republicans at the polls, according to several who lobbied for the changes. That, in turn, helped drive such prominent Republicans as Reps. E. Clay Shaw Jr. of Florida and Susan Molinari of New York and Sens. Alfonse M. D’Amato of New York and John H. Chafee of Rhode Island to support a range of proposals to restore some aid.

“Republicans are starting to run away from a measure that’s blown up in their faces,” said Frank Sharry of the National Immigration Forum, a group that has pressed for restored aid. “And they’re smart to do so.” Sharry noted that immigrants who become citizens are “the fastest-growing sector of the electorate” and said that “they’re mad as hell.”

In recent days, Republicans became more and more willing to restore benefits for disabled legal immigrants. While most House Republicans originally supported Shaw’s proposal for a $2-billion package, the GOP went into the balanced-budget negotiations wanting to hold funding to $6 billion.

White House officials were pleased when Republicans accepted the $10-billion aid package, including some aid to legal immigrants who were in the country at the time the 1996 welfare reform bill was signed and have since become disabled.

In addition, it appeared that Republican lawmakers had dropped their insistence on disbursing the aid in the form of block grants to states--a payment structure that many believe would be extremely disadvantageous to states with high immigrant populations, such as California.

Immigrant advocates cautioned, however, that--while the administration won most of what it wanted--it had dropped an earlier demand for restoration of food stamps to legal immigrants. As a result, as many as 1 million noncitizens nationwide--including 426,900 in California--could lose food stamps even if the $10-billion package becomes law.

One of the leading bipartisan bills in the Senate--written by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chafee--would have included funds for such food aid.

“While this is in some sense significant progress, let’s not forget that the 1996 welfare bill cut a total of $23.6 billion in aid to legal immigrants. . . ,” said the National Immigration Forum’s Sharry. “This battle isn’t over. There’s been some bandaging that’s taken place, but there’s still going to be some bleeding.”

The Republicans’ agreement to the $10-billion package followed a week of intensive lobbying by a delegation of California legislators led by Gov. Pete Wilson. On Thursday, Wilson’s office praised both lawmakers and his own efforts.

“We are extremely pleased that Congress is acting to take care of our most vulnerable, legal immigrant population,” said Wilson spokesman Sean Walsh. “The governor has worked tirelessly and had dozens of meetings with congressional leaders and members to secure this money.”

Many lawmakers acknowledged that political concerns helped effect the Republicans’ shift.

“Even people who supported not restoring SSI for noncitizens are not going to want to sit by and watch people pushed out in the street,” Shaw said in an interview Wednesday night. “Human compassion just doesn’t work that way. . . . You want to do the right thing, and you want people to know you want to do the right thing. If we don’t do something, then obviously that ‘mean and extreme’ label will be deserved.”