KY: Senate panel oks citizenship proof for welfare benefits

FRANKFORT — A Senate panel unanimously approved a bill Thursday morning that would require applicants to government welfare programs to provide official proof of U.S. citizenship or legal residency.

Federal law prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving most forms of welfare, including Medicaid, food stamps, public housing and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Their U.S.-born children, if they have any, automatically are citizens and are eligible.

March 15, 2012
John Cheves
Kentucky.com

Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, said he has heard stories about illegal immigrants who used dishonest measures to get into the welfare system and collect benefits. He could not provide data or specific examples.

"We have no way of knowing how many that there are,"

Wilson said after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved his Senate Bill 118 and sent it to the Senate floor.

Wilson's bill would require the attorney general, by Aug. 1, to make public a list of acceptable state and federal documents to establish citizenship or legal residency. After that, state agencies granting public benefits would have to check those documents.

After the hearing, spokeswomen for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services said they could not immediately explain the state's existing procedure for screening applicants for public benefits.

Democratic senators on the committee voted for the bill, although they raised concerns about the availability of official documents. Some native-born Kentuckians do not possess driver licenses, passport or — in rare instances of people born at home — even birth certificates, they said.