Settlement Averts Deportation Threat : Handicapped Children of Illegals Can Now Get Aid

Rodolfo is 5. He is mentally retarded, suffers from cerebral palsy and is unable to walk or sit. He is also an illegal alien, and that’s his most immediate problem.

Three years ago, the California Children’s Services program, which helps severely disabled children, diagnosed his disabilities and gave him a special wheelchair that enabled him not only to sit but to attend public school.

But soon Rodolfo will outgrow the chair and need a new one. And as he grows, he may also need surgery and braces to help him walk. The California Children’s Services program provides such services to severely disabled children.

But Rodolfo’s parents, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other illegal aliens, quietly withdrew their children from the program in 1983 and 1984. They sacrificed their benefits because of a little-noticed change in application procedures that resulted in their names being given to immigration authorities.

And then a week ago, as quietly as the problem arose, it was settled. The settlement was the result of a class-action lawsuit filed last year against the state in Superior Court here by three law firms representing Rodolfo and others like him.

Both sides estimate that the settlement could pave the way for 2,000 or 3,000 children to enroll in the program statewide.

“Our primary purpose in filing this lawsuit was to win a change in state policy which would allow severely handicapped and medically needy immigrant children access to health services without their families’ being exposed to deportation,” said Carlos Holguin of the National Center for Immigrants’ Rights Inc., one of the three law firms.

Holguin said the suit was filed because of a state directive in January, 1983, that required all applicants for the California Children’s Services program to apply for Medi-Cal.

“The state’s policy of requiring the parents of these children to apply for Medi-Cal as a condition of receiving CCS services was a thinly veiled effort to deny these children CCS services,” Holguin charged Thursday in an interview.

Because illegal aliens are not eligible for Medi-Cal and most other federally subsidized social service benefits, the applications of non-citizens are turned over to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for verification that the applicants are here legally.

Notice to Appear

If an illegal alien applies for Medi-Cal, he is sent a notice asking him to appear before the immigration service. Those applicants determined to be illegal are subject to deportation and are processed as resources allow, an immigration service official said. The immigration service also notifies Medi-Cal that those applicants are ineligible for benefits, he said. State law does not prohibit illegal alien children from receiving aid under the California Children’s Services program.

Dr. Esmond Smith, director of California Children’s Services, confirmed that a settlement has been reached in the case and that applicants will no longer be required to apply for Medi-Cal if they are obviously ineligible for Medi-Cal benefits because of their immigration status.

He estimated that the settlement will affect 2,000 to 3,000 children statewide and cost the state an additional $1 million to $2 million.

Smith said he was aware of the potential effect on illegal alien children at the time the directive was issued in 1983, but be said he believed that he had no alternative because of concern in the state Legislature over growing costs.

The program, which was started by the state in 1927 under the name of the Crippled Children’s Services, has long been criticized by the Legislature for failing to take full advantage of federal reimbursements available to the agency for its clients who are eligible for Medi-Cal.

In response to such criticism, Smith said, his office issued an administrative directive requiring California Children’s Services applicants to apply for Medi-Cal.

“But everybody knows that if you apply for Medi-Cal, they give your name and address to the immigration service,” said Rodolfo’s mother, whose name is not given because of her immigration status. “It was hard for our son if he had to drop the program, but we had to think of all the rest of the people in the family too.”

Rodolfo lives with his parents and five brothers and sisters in a one-room apartment in downtown Los Angeles that has no kitchen and a bathroom down the hall. His father is a $600-a-month ironer who cannot afford the highly specialized equipment or the leg braces or surgery that Rodolfo might require as he grows.

“We don’t even know what he can achieve because he cannot talk enough to let us really know,” she said. “But now we have confidence that he will be able to have whatever he needs to progress.”

Rodolfo attends Sophia T. Salvin School, one of several public schools for severely disabled children. At school he is visited periodically by a doctor and given physical therapy as prescribed, as are all children, regardless of nationality.

“Because all children are guaranteed the right to public education regardless of immigration status, we became concerned when we heard two years ago that some were not able to qualify under CCS,” said Bruce Saltzer, executive director of a local watchdog agency known as Developmental Disabilities Area Board Ten, set up by the state to oversee California Children’s Services programs in the Los Angeles area.

Decided to Sue State

When the board, whose members are appointed by the governor and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, heard about the new procedure, Saltzer said, they attempted to persuade the state to revoke the policy. When those attempts failed, he said, they took the unusual step of voting to sue the state.

Plaintiffs in the case included Saltzer’s board, Rodolfo and two other severely disabled children and the United Cerebral Palsy/Spastic Children’s Foundation.

Among other things, the suit charged that the state’s directive violated a provision of a budget act in July, 1983, that forced California Children’s Services applicants to apply for Medi-Cal “unless the individual declines to apply on the basis of known ineligibility. . . .”

California Children’s Services program provides diagnostic evaluations, hospital and surgical services, lab tests and medical appliances and equipment that poor, severely disabled children cannot find under other programs. Acute medical care for emergencies and long-term physical therapy generally are provided by other agencies.