O.C. Helps Immigrants When Kin Won't

By TINA NGUYEN and LISA RICHARDSON

May 6, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

SANTA ANA —

Hao Thi Nguyen came to the United States five years ago hoping to reunite with her husband and their 14-year-old daughter, who had fled Vietnam eight years before. She ended up on welfare.

Although her husband had signed an affidavit with federal immigration authorities promising to support her, Hao Thi Nguyen arrived only to discover that he had remarried and did not want her.

For three years, Nguyen, who is diabetic and suffers from chronic arthritis in her legs, made ends meet by taking on-and-off sewing jobs and depending on her six adult children, four of whom came to the U.S. with her in 1991.

But after three years, she was eligible for county welfare and since last year has been receiving a monthly government check of $299, and $119 in food stamps.

“It helps a great deal,” said Nguyen, 59. “I don’t have to burden my children as much anymore.”

Social Services officials say cases such as Nguyen’s show why the cost to the county general relief budget is skyrocketing, having gone up five times in one year.

Behind the increase, they say, is a little publicized change in federal law. Up until two years ago, immigrants most often received public aid from the federal Supplemental Security Income program once they completed their third year in the U.S.

Supplemental Security Income, a federal program established in 1974 for elderly, disabled or blind people, had increasingly become a primary means of support for sponsored immigrants. The eligibility categories are so broad--particularly the definition of “disabled,” which itself has become a source of controversy--that a wide range of people qualify for the monthly checks, said Angelo Doti, director of financial assistance for the Social Services Agency.

But Congress changed the law two years ago to require five-year residency before immigrants could be eligible for Supplemental Security Income, which provides about $614 a month for one person living independently and $1,101 for a couple--more if the recipients are blind. That left a two-year gap in public assistance, now filled by local government welfare programs such as Orange County’s general relief.

“Just two years ago, virtually all of the sponsored immigrants who now receive general relief would have instead received SSI [Supplemental Security Income] had they applied,” Doti said.

The economic impact of the shift of sponsored immigrants to general relief has been dramatic. Before the rules changed, the county spent about $343,020 on welfare for sponsored immigrants. One year later, the county bill jumped to $1.6 million and is climbing an average of 30% each month. General relief is not funded with any state or federal dollars.

From the outset of the change, more than 881 sponsored immigrants in the county who would have received Supplemental Security Income instead sought general relief. The county requires them to apply for Supplemental Security Income, and if they are denied they may stay on general relief if they still qualify.

County statistics indicate that 95% of sponsored immigrants receiving general relief are from Vietnam. Refugees fleeing the Vietnam War established the largest Vietnamese community outside Southeast Asia; relatives have continued to arrive to reunite with family.

In Orange County, almost 70% of the general relief population are not citizens, and of those, 31% are sponsored immigrants in the country less than five years, Doti said. The majority are elderly people, some of whom spent time in re-education camps after the war and are physically or mentally disabled, unable to speak English and virtually unable to support themselves if family members refuse to do so.

When sponsored immigrants on general relief approach the five-year residency mark, the county insists that they, if eligible, apply for Supplemental Security Income. If they do not at least apply, the county will discontinue general relief benefits after two years.

“That’s how we know that almost 100% of sponsored immigrants move from general relief to SSI,” Doti said. “If they were not accepted for SSI they would still be receiving general relief from us. Instead, each month we move a group off of general relief.”

But because of the two-year gap, sponsors commonly affirm to the INS that they own a home worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and are capable of supporting a relative--and then drop that support after three years and threaten to evict the relative unless he or she pays rent.

County officials have dozens of examples of “day-after” scenarios, when sponsors whose three years are up immediately bring their relatives to seek government aid.

In one case, a woman who earns $95,000 annually had sponsored her 72-year-old mother from Russia and supported the elderly woman for exactly three years. The day after the third year passed, she brought her mother to the general relief office, stating the government should support her mother now.

In another, an 80-year-old man was sponsored by his son, who at the end of the three-year period brought him to the general relief office because his father now should be “self-sufficient.”

To sponsor a relative, the family members living in the United States must list their income and assets and sign an affidavit promising to support that relative for three years.

The document’s language may seem legally binding, “but in case after case the courts have ruled that it’s not,” Doti said. “We are not into quotas; we are not against family reunification.

“If I moved here, I would want my parents with me too--I think everyone appreciates that. But this is a fiduciary issue here.”

It is also a complicated cultural issue, said Loc Nam Nguyen, director of a nonprofit Los Angeles-based group called the Immigration and Refugees Department with the Catholic Charities.

Loc Nam Nguyen said he is skeptical about making the affidavits legally enforceable, in part because it puts too much responsibility on the sponsors and not enough on the immigrants.

A number of former detainees who spent time in Vietnamese re-education camps come to the United States believing they deserve special treatment or compensation for their struggles, he said.

“They don’t realize that they’ll get only temporary help and that they need go to the DMV, learn how to drive and then find a job,” Loc Nam Nguyen said. “In these cases, it’s not the refugee who is vulnerable, but the sponsor is vulnerable.”

Sponsors usually care for their relatives for most of their transitional stage and beyond, without public assistance. But some immigrants do face desertion.

When Nga Bich Nguyen’s older brother sponsored her to come to the United States, he signed an affidavit agreeing to financially support both Nguyen, 41, and her 19-year-old daughter for the following three years. Nguyen arrived in the U.S. from Vietnam via Spain in January--and she has not seen him yet.

“I haven’t even been able to touch my brother,” she said, sitting in the county’s general relief office, where she unsuccessfully applied for aid.

Her brother Trang Anh Nguyen, a Tacoma, Wash., businessman who owns four houses, said in an interview that he originally intended to care for Nga Nguyen, but because of irreconcilable differences, he said he washed his hands of her.

“She became disappointed when she found out people in the U.S. work hard and don’t always live like kings,” he said. “The family does not have to support her as though she’s handicapped.” Trang Nguyen said he offers her enough assistance by sending her $50 a month and providing “moral support.”

Restrictions on welfare for immigrants are in the offing.

The Senate voted Thursday to bar immigrants from public assistance programs if the person sponsoring their move to the United States can support them. Under the Senate bill, a sponsor’s income would be considered part of the immigrant’s income if that immigrant seeks public assistance. The House already passed a version of the bill and now it goes to conference committee to work out the differences.

And myriad proposed restrictions are still to be voted upon.

After testifying in February before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration about Orange County’s woes, Doti drafted suggested changes to the regulations at the request of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. In his recommendations, Doti suggests new rules to eliminate both the gap between local and federal eligibility rules, and what he calls “the costly sham” perpetrated by relatives such as Nga Nguyen’s.

He applauded the Senate’s vote but emphasized that while immigration has largely become a political issue, from his perspective it remains solely a budgetary concern.

“Frankly, we’re neutral on this issue long as [the county’s] not paying for it,” Doti said. “While there have been campaigns for all kinds of proposals and what have you, but for us, and for most people, it’s primarily a fiscal issue.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Increasing Assistance

Both the number of sponsored immigrants receiving General Relief funds and the amount spent by the county have exploded since 1993. The January totals:

Individuals receiving relief

1993: 8

1994: 366

1995: 894

Costs

1993: $2,815

1994: $82,992

1995: $211,526

Altered Split

While Orange County’s overall relief expenditures dropped about 8% from 1994 to 1995, the percentage spent on sponsored immigrants increased fivefold:

1994

Total spending: $7,824,984

O.C. Helps Immigrants When Kin Won’t

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