Don’t Cast Legal Immigrants Adrift

California’s welfare system isn’t working. Taxpayers are frustrated and recipients are trapped on a dead-end path. The Legislature and the governor must seize the opportunity we have to fix the broken system and get people off welfare and into jobs. That’s why the Legislature approved a moderate welfare reform plan called the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids Program, or “CalWORKs.”

CalWORKs makes welfare what those of us in the middle have always thought it should be: temporary help to get families back on their feet and back to being taxpayers and productive members of the community.

Democrats made compromises in many areas to get where we are on welfare reform. There are some areas, though, where we cannot in good conscience compromise any more. One of these areas, for example, consists of offering a measure of protection to elderly immigrants who entered this country legally, played by the rules and are now in danger of losing food stamps and other basic safety net services.

CalWORKs fully achieves the goals of the federal welfare reform law passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton. It moves job-ready recipients into work immediately. It has a two-year time limit, as well as the same five-year lifetime limit backed by the governor and Congress, and there’s a lifetime ban that keeps drug felons from getting a dime. If able-bodied adults have job skills, CalWORKs requires them to seek employment immediately. Job training is done only when necessary, and there is mandatory counseling for recipients with mental health and substance abuse problems.

The federal welfare reform law went beyond trying to get the able-bodied off welfare and into work by also denying elderly legal immigrants access to food stamps and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). This combined federal-state assistance is for the elderly, blind and disabled. Losing SSI affects immigrants’ eligibility for state safety net programs such as In-Home Supportive Services, which helps people remain in their own homes instead of having to enter nursing homes. Curt Pringle, the Assembly Republican leader from conservative Orange County, has argued that the SSI cutoff was unfair and should be remedied. In campaign commercials, Gov. Pete Wilson has stressed the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants.

While there has been some relief from the federal government regarding immigrants with disabilities, and many private organizations are working to help elderly legal immigrants become citizens, there are still legal immigrants in need of a safety net who are in danger of falling through cracks. It is basic decency for us to make sure that people who came to this country legally and worked hard and paid taxes don’t have to live in terror of being thrown into destitution.

Democrats in the Legislature are proposing California versions of SSI and food stamps, which would cost $17 million and $100 million, respectively. We also want to preserve, at a cost of $7.2 million, legal immigrants’ access to In-Home Supportive Services, a cost-effective way of dealing with low-income elderly who might otherwise require expensive institutional care. The total would be $124 million out of a $68-billion budget to keep the safety net in place for legal immigrants.

The governor and his Republican allies in the Legislature should be advised that Democrats will demand a safety net for children, the elderly and the disabled. And to us, legal means legal.

Unfortunately, efforts to bring legislators and the public together around the moderate CalWORKs plan have been hurt by political games. You may have seen evidence of this in your newspaper or mailbox: “Democrats want more people on welfare. Democrats want people on welfare forever. Democrats let people drive up in a Mercedes to get their check.” In some cases, you may even see the same kind of immigrant bashing that was used to win votes for Proposition 187.

This is wrong. It shows there are people who want to block welfare reform because they think the old system makes a good campaign tool. But partisan stunts to block welfare reform hurt Californians who are paying for the failed system we have now, hurt poor families struggling to make it off the welfare rolls and hurt elderly legal immigrants who have no place else to turn.

California’s final welfare reform plan will have to be a bipartisan effort. I hope the Republicans will find a way to move to the middle, as Democrats have. Together, we can craft the compromise everyone knows must come: a welfare system that respects taxpayers, puts recipients to work and protects children, the elderly and disabled.