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Elderly and Disabled Refugees Call on Congress to Stop Cutoff of Critical Aid
July 18, 2005
U.S. Newswire
To: National Desk
Contact: Gideon Aronoff, 202-828-5115, gideon.aronoff@hias.org
News Advisory:
At a breakfast briefing hosted by the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society on Wednesday, July 20 at 10 a.m. in room SC-4 of the U.S. Capitol, refugees facing a cutoff of key government benefits will describe its potentially catastrophic impact on their lives and ask Congress to intervene.
Each day, more and more low-income elderly or disabled refugees are losing Supplemental Security Income (SSI), their primary means of support, because they failed to meet a new deadline for becoming U.S. citizens. By 2010, an estimated 20,000 refugees will have lost SSI benefits.
"All of these people came to this country because they were fleeing persecution back home," said Gideon Aronoff, vice president for government relations and public policy at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. "Because of age or disability, they aren't able to work. For the United States to turn its back on them is totally inconsistent with our country's humanitarian tradition."
Speakers at the briefing will include refugees from Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries of Fresno, Calif., and United Montagnard Christian Church of Greensboro, N.C. Nationally, people affected by the benefit cutoff include former Soviets seeking religious freedom in the United States, Montagnards and other Southeast Asians who assisted the U.S. during the Vietnam war, Kurds escaping Saddam Hussein's regime, Cubans escaping the Castro regime, and Bosnians escaping "ethnic cleansing."
New Citizenship Deadline Often Impossible to Meet
SSI provides modest cash grants to people who have little or no income and are either elderly or severely disabled. For many refugees, SSI is their sole means of support. Unlike most other immigrants, humanitarian immigrants generally do not have sponsors in this country they can turn to for support.
As a result of 1996 legislation, newly arriving "humanitarian immigrants" must become citizens within seven years or else lose their SSI benefits. Yet many of them are unable to meet this deadline, for several reasons. They are not allowed to apply for citizenship until they have lived in this country for at least five years, for example, and it can take the federal government two to three years to process an application because of the long backlog of cases. Also, many humanitarian immigrants have trouble meeting the application requirements, including tests on English-language proficiency and U.S. history and civics.
President Bush and members of Congress of both parties have expressed support for extending the seven-year deadline, but Congress has yet to act on the matter.
The briefing is being sponsored by the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, United Montagnard Christian Church, Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries, National Immigration Law Center, Hmong National Development, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. It is open to the public.
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