Refugees Caught Between Current, Former Policy

South Vietnamese army Col. Trinh Canh spent 10 years in Communist re-education camps after the U.S. withdrawal from his country. Now an elderly refugee living on welfare in Orange County, he fears another U.S. retreat, this one from the War on Poverty.

Canh is among tens of thousands of Californians caught in an ironic twist brought about by the new welfare reform law: Some people brought to the country by the foreign policy of the past may be left behind in the domestic policy of the future.

In California, the provision in the new welfare reform law that threatens to cut elderly, blind and disabled legal immigrants off of Supplemental Security Income payments will probably hit Asians hardest.

Immigrants from Asia are the largest single group of non-U.S. citizens on SSI. Along with those from the former Soviet Union and Middle East, who are counted as Asians in state welfare statistics, they make up 56% of the 310,000 noncitizens on SSI in California.

Many of them, like 70-year-old Canh, are refugees.

They came to California after the Vietnam War, the fall of the U.S.-supported shah of Iran and years of U.S. pressure on the former Soviet Union to allow the emigration of Jews.

Proponents of welfare reform have argued that welfare lures immigrants to the United States, but in California, Cold War policies created much of the immigrant SSI population.

“The U.S. made a social and political judgment to let these people in because of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and a commitment to human rights,” said Bill Ong Hing, a visiting law professor at UC Berkeley and author of a book on U.S. policy and Asian immigration.

Hing said the welfare reform law, which sets a five-year limit on welfare for refugees, contradicts the nation’s commitment to those fleeing persecution. “These people were not attracted here by welfare or popular media images of American life. . . . We cannot insist on being humanitarian then not treat them humanely after they get here.”

Andrea Spolidoro, associate director of the Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific American Older Adults Task Force, said the cuts will betray Southeast Asians whom the United States sided with during the Vietnam War.

“You can’t tell people who might have lost their family, village or country because they helped us, ‘We can’t help you even though you’re old, blind or disabled. You’ve been here past five years.’ ”

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Although the largest single group of noncitizen SSI recipients in California is from Mexico, Mexicans constitute only 22% of the state total. Vietnamese represent the next largest group of noncitizens on SSI, about 9% of the California total, followed by Filipinos, Chinese, those from the former Soviet Union, Laotians and Iranians.

Most immigrants who came to the United States after 1970 from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and the Soviet Union are refugees, as are many from Iran.

The large number of Chinese and Filipinos--relatively few of whom are refugees--among Asian immigrants on SSI corresponds to their being by far the largest Asian immigrant group. The size of both the Chinese and Filipino communities, which have long histories of immigration to the United States, exploded after immigration laws were changed in 1965 to make it easier for people in the United States to sponsor the entry of their relatives.

There are eight times as many Chinese American senior citizens as Vietnamese 65 or older, according to the 1990 census. Filipinos 65 or older outnumber Vietnamese seniors 6 to 1. But Vietnamese still outnumber Chinese and Filipinos among noncitizens on SSI in California, reflecting the high need for assistance among groups made up largely of refugees.

Many refugees were elderly or disabled upon their arrival, especially those from war-torn Southeast Asia.

Refugees who arrive in the United States unable to work because they are disabled or elderly cannot collect Social Security benefits, which are built up through payroll deductions, and therefore have to rely on SSI.

Congress established SSI in 1972, replacing a system of federal grants to state programs. To qualify for SSI, a person must be 65 or older, blind or disabled and low-income. Benefit levels vary according to the income and resources of recipients. The average monthly payment for an aged or disabled person living independently is $626 in California.

Only 22% of Vietnamese noncitizens over 65 receive Social Security benefits, according to the 1990 census, compared with 46% of elderly Chinese and 42% of Filipinos over 65.

Immigrants from South Korea and Taiwan, increasingly prosperous industrialized nations, trail other Asian groups on SSI, ranking eighth and 10th in the California noncitizen SSI totals.

The large number of Soviet refugees arrived through an aggressive U.S. policy that withheld favorable trade terms from the Soviet Union as long as it restricted Jewish emigration.

Soviet emigration to the United States rose to 370,000 in 1990 from 2,000 in 1986.

The large number of refugees on SSI in California could hamper a key goal of welfare reform.

Cutting noncitizens off SSI is meant partly to force relatives who sponsored the entry of immigrants to live up to their obligations and support their kin. But refugees did not enter the United States through the sponsorship of a relative or employer.

Without sponsors to support them, many refugees will seek citizenship to preserve their benefits.

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At Plummer Park in West Hollywood, a popular gathering spot for Soviet Jewish refugees, Boris Krasner, 64, said he believes he will be able to become a citizen before his welfare benefits are cut off. Under welfare reform, refugees can retain their benefits by becoming citizens. Those who have worked in the United States for 10 years can also remain on SSI.

“I have no doubt I’ll be able to pass the test,” Krasner, a retired engineer from Moscow, said through an interpreter.

But others fear they will not be able to fall back on any of the support options left open by the welfare reform act.

They include those who cannot speak English well enough to pass a citizenship test and those who have already been in the country longer than five years.

“I do not optimistic,” said Svetlana Kuklina, 61, a Ukrainian refugee struggling to learn English at a class held in the park.

Kuklina receives SSI because she is mentally disabled. She said her depression worsened when her mother and aunt died of radiation exposure after the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.

Her husband, Mark, 60, uses a walker because of injuries he said were caused by radiation sickness from the reactor accident.

Although she is studying English, Kuklina worries that her psychological condition will keep her from learning the language well enough to pass the citizenship exam.

Kuklina said she agrees that welfare should be reformed, but thinks the new law is too blunt. “America saved our lives. I understand the country can’t afford the welfare system, but the reform lacks an individual approach. Not everyone can pass the test because of age or other individual factors,” she said through an interpreter.

Miriam Prum Hess, who coordinates refugee programs for the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, said many of those least able to help themselves are at risk of being cut off from SSI.

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Elderly immigrants who cannot speak English and have not been in the United States for many years, for instance, cannot take advantage of native-language citizenship tests given to those who are at least 50 years old and who have been in the country for 25 years, or 55 and in the United States 20 years.

Even if they could take the test in their own language, Prum Hess said, some refugees were poorly educated--sometimes illiterate --in their own lands.

Prum Hess said some of the elderly refugees served by her group are also so severely disabled they cannot even take a citizenship oath.

Immigration laws were amended in 1994 to allow leeway in citizenship requirements for the disabled, but the regulations have yet to be finalized.

Those now on SSI will not be cut off until next year, and some parts of the new welfare reform law do not go into effect until July 1997.

The state might be able to offset some of the federal cuts to refugees, said Sean Walsh, Gov. Pete Wilson’s press secretary. “The governor is looking for ways the state might be able to provide additional enhancements,” he said. “It’s a work in progress.”

Walsh said refugees “have to work hard to learn English and join the mainstream, but for the elderly, that might be more difficult.”

At Southern California senior citizens centers, those who felt they could no longer live in their homelands wonder how they will survive in their new homes if SSI is cut off.

Welfare reform is a hot topic among senior citizens who gather for citizenship classes and card games, or to collect government surplus canned pears and elbow macaroni at the Vietnamese Community senior citizens center in Santa Ana.

Trac Nguyen, 55, said she has failed the citizenship test three times and is hoping to pass it before she loses her SSI checks. Nguyen, who came to the United States in 1986, receives SSI disability payments because of mental illness.

She said she suffers from post-traumatic stress, caused by her war experience and by watching her 10-year-old son starve to death on her monthlong boat trip from Vietnam. “My memory is so bad now, I’m very afraid I won’t pass again,” she said.

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Ngo Nguyen, 77, has already passed the written part of the citizenship exam and is waiting for her interview. Her husband, 81, has already become a citizen.

Nguyen confidently asked another senior to ask her a few practice questions. “How old are you?” queried her friend in English.

Nguyen’s response showed just how difficult it is for some to learn English: “I am fine, thank you,” Nguyen replied beaming.

At Plummer Park, Gregory Brodyetsky, 68, who came to the United States last year from Moscow after a lifetime of suffering as a Jew in Russia, and fearing rising anti-Semitism there, laments the timing of welfare reform.

“I’ve been here only 15 months; this is Jewish luck,” he said through an interpreter.

He doubts he will be able to support himself without SSI, and does not think he can pass a citizenship test.

Brodyetsky said his mental ability has worsened because of lingering effects of a head injury and nerve damage he suffered in World War II, when the tank he was driving at the Russian front was hit by a round from a German tank.

He said the timing of the welfare reform law was especially painful to him and that he hopes aid will somehow be restored.

Ukrainian refugee Dora Boglomollny, 65, said she and her mother may be among those left behind by welfare reform. “This is our community problem. Very hard to learn English. My mother is 84 years old. People very worried,” she said.

Struggling to express herself in English, she reflected on the irony of her plight. “This is a free country,” she blurted, then began to sob. “This is a free country,” she repeated, her emphatic voice offset by a sorrowful gaze.

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Aid to Legal Immigrants

In California, more than 300,000 legal immigrants, the majority of them Asian, receive welfare grants.

Recipients by area of origin:

Asia*: (under 60%)

South America: (under 10%)

Europe: (under 10%)

North America: (under 30%)

Other: (under 10%)

Unknown: (under 10%)

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to noncitizens

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Number of noncitizens by country of origin

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Country Aged Blind Disabled Total % of total Vietnam 10,237 586 15,903 26,726 8.6% Philippines 23,154 111 3,220 26,485 8.6% China 20,568 199 2,690 23,457 7.6% Former USSR 9,566 234 9,128 18,928 6.1% Laos 3,536 363 12,743 16,642 5.4% Iran 8,635 110 5,186 13,931 4.5% Cambodia 1,774 316 11,558 13,648 4.4% S. Korea 10,183 83 2,506 12,772 4.1% Mexico 38,968 878 29,698 69,544 22.5% Other 35,386 717 23,357 59,460 19.2% Unknown 17,610 367 9,813 27,790 9.0% Total 179,617 3,964 125,802 309,383 100%

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Source: California Department of Social services (as of January 1995)

* Includes the former Soviet Union and the Middle East