Officials Seek to Warn Immigrants of Aid Loss

More than 4,000 elderly or disabled immigrants living in Los Angeles County stand to lose federal aid Sept. 30 unless they can show they have obtained U.S. citizenship or permanent resident status, officials said Friday.

The residents receive Supplemental Security Income, a federal cash assistance program for elderly, blind and disabled legal residents. Benefits range up to $640 a month from federal and state governments.

As part of welfare reform, Congress in 1996 cut off eligibility for noncitizens. But it was restored last year.

However, a small group of these recipients fell through the cracks. Some are immigrants who did not have permanent resident status green cards.

Others have green cards or even citizenship, but have not notified the Social Security Administration of their status.

County officials held a news conference Friday to publicize their plight.

“Some of these aged recipients may not even know they are facing a cutoff of benefits,” said Josephine Marquez, a county citizenship supervisor.

The county is trying to contact the 4,163 county residents who, according to Social Security records, stand to lose their benefits. They are from dozens of nations, but more than one-third are from Mexico; significant numbers are from Iran, El Salvador and the former Soviet Union. Many have changed addresses and are hard to find.

Typically, their monthly checks are deposited directly into bank accounts. Some live in board and care homes whose owners are equally unaware of their clients’ pending benefit cutoff.

Immigrants with temporary status, but no green card, will face greater hardship.

They may well lose their aid because green card applications at the Immigration and Naturalization Service are so backed up that completing the process by Sept. 30 is unlikely.

“I gave my life to this country, and I don’t think it’s fair that I should lose this little bit of help now,” said Gorgonio Robles, 73, who first came to the United States in 1955 from Mexico as a contract “bracero” field hand and subsequently worked as a gardener and dishwasher.

Robles stands to lose $149 in monthly SSI payments, which almost covers the $188 monthly rent at the Los Angeles apartment he shares with his wife, Tomasa Robles, 62. The couple have 12 adult children, but Robles said all have their own families and bills with little to spare.

“I don’t want to be a burden for my children,” said Robles, dressed in the boots, bolo tie and vest commonly worn in his home state of Zacatecas.

Also facing aid cutoff is a 75-year-old ethnic Armenian from Iran who survives on her $640 monthly government check. She said she has no close relatives whom she could depend on to care for her.

“If they take this money, I’m going to be on the street,” said Anaeed H., who declined to give her full name and who appeared at the county-sponsored news conference with Robles.

Bills pending in Sacramento would provide state aid to replace the lost SSI checks.

The legislative prospects are cloudy, but Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) said he was hopeful--in part because of the improving state economy and what he called a more positive view of immigrants’ importance.

Anyone with questions about benefits are urged to call the Social Security hotline at: (800) 772-1213.