Kinder Line on Immigrant Aid

Gov. Pete Wilson, in a preview of some good news from his January budget address, says he plans to continue welfare checks and Medi-Cal health care benefits for the families of legal immigrants. That can mean the difference between homelessness or decent shelter for needy families and can provide a healthy future for poor children.

The governor also told Times columnist George Skelton that he is leaning toward continuing to allow poor immigrant women who are here illegally to receive milk and other nutritious foods for themselves during pregnancy, and for their children through age 5, from the federally funded Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. WIC, as the program is known, provides vouchers regardless of the immigration status of women and children. It costs the state nothing and is one of the few instances of the federal government paying for services for illegal immigrants, a responsibility that Wilson and this newspaper insist Washington should bear because border control is a federal obligation.

WIC benefits for illegal immigrants were in jeopardy because the new welfare reform law allows states to cut off that aid. Illegal immigrants do not qualify for regular welfare checks. Needy legal immigrants, however, qualified for the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. Now the new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families law gives states the discretion to end welfare to legal immigrants. Wilson’s continuation of checks for 375,000 noncitizen parents and children is only fair; these people played by the rules and many worked and paid taxes before falling on hard times.

Wilson’s decision will take two thorny issues off the table when he and the Democratic-controlled Legislature hash out California’s new welfare program. But there will still be plenty to fight over. The new welfare reform law no longer guarantees benefits to all poor families who qualify, and all future assistance will be temporary. The state also is required to move nearly 1 million welfare recipients off of aid and presumably into jobs over the next five years. New state laws must be passed to conform welfare programs with the new federal law. But for now, at least, no family will be thrown off welfare prematurely.