Budget Restores Some Funds for Disabled, Elderly Immigrants

About 140,000 disabled and elderly legal immigrants in California threatened with a benefit cutoff this year will continue to receive federal subsistence checks under the recent budget agreement reached in Washington, according to a Los Angeles County analysis released Friday during a state legislative hearing.

However, 60,000 other noncitizen legal immigrants, almost half of them in Los Angeles County, are still expected to lose their Supplemental Security Income as a result of last year’s welfare overhaul.

The budget accord would restore SSI eligibility for disabled noncitizens who were in the United States on or before Aug. 22, when the welfare bill was signed into law.

Meanwhile, Congress is expected to put off until Oct. 1 all cutoffs of SSI benefits for noncitizens under the welfare law, pushing back action that had been slated to begin Aug. 1.

But witnesses at Friday’s hearing cautioned that there were still many hurdles.

For one thing, most elderly SSI recipients will now presumably have to requalify under disability guidelines that can often take months or even years to comply with. And people disabled after entry will remain ineligible.

Moreover, more than 200,000 legal immigrant food stamp recipients statewide still face a cutoff in the food vouchers as of Sept. 1. The budget deal did nothing to modify the food stamp cut.