Congress OKs Food Aid for Some Legal Immigrants

House and Senate lawmakers, granting the Clinton administration a partial victory, struck a deal Thursday to restore food stamps to several groups of legal immigrants, including refugees and certain elderly and disabled noncitizens.

After months of resistance, Republicans in recent days have agreed to provide $818 million over five years to reinstate food aid to many of the nearly 1 million legal immigrants whose eligibility was terminated as part of the 1996 welfare reform law. President Clinton had sought $2.5 billion to restore aid to all who had lost their food stamp eligibility as a result of welfare reform.

The deal would cover children of legal immigrants who were in the country on Aug. 22, 1996, when the welfare reform bill was signed into law. It would extend the food stamp eligibility of refugees from five to seven years. And it would restore food stamps to some 20,000 Hmong refugees who fled Laos after aiding U.S. military efforts in Southeast Asia.

The compromise food stamp agreement is contained in the fine print of a bill providing $590 million for agriculture research.

The measure is expected to win House and Senate passage within days and would take effect Nov. 1, 1998.

The bill returns food stamp eligibility to thousands of California immigrants. But its immediate impact likely would be greater on the California treasury than on immigrant families.

The California Legislature set aside $35 million to buy replacement food stamps this year for some of the 286,000 Californians who lost them as a result of the welfare reform law. Covered by the Legislature’s action are legal immigrant children and elderly legal immigrants who were in the country Aug. 22, 1996.

Under the compromise bill moving through Congress, most members of both groups would regain their eligibility for federal food aid. That would enable the state to pocket most of the $35 million it was prepared to spend.

Immigrant advocates expressed hope that California would extend food stamp eligibility to other legal immigrants who would remain ineligible even under the new federal legislation.