Thread: The Hispanic impact ... Illegals do get some benefits

The Hispanic impact ... Illegals do get some benefits
By J.D. Walker -- Staff Writer, The Courier-Tribune

ASHEBORO — As the debate on immigration reform continues on the national level, some of the concerns are reaching down to the county level.
What benefits such as food stamps and WIC vouchers are Hispanics receiving? Do illegal immigrants receive benefits?
During the recent budget hearings before the Randolph County commissioners, those questions came up again and again. They have also surfaced in seminars and daily conversations.
In this debate, the Randolph County Department of Social Services (DSS) and the Randolph County Health Department take a lot of the heat.
Martha Sheriff, the local DSS director, said her department is not allowed to give out food stamps or other benefits to illegal immigrants. (See related story.)
That same restriction does not apply to the health department, which administers the WIC program, a nutritional program for women, infants and children, and provides other services such as immunizations.
MiMi Cooper, county health director, said her department is prohibited by federal guidelines from asking whether a person is legal or illegal.
The reason is simple. Her job is not to determine if someone is a citizen. Her job is to protect public health.
“We’ve all got to be protected or none of us are protected,” she said.
What is WIC?
WIC stands for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. WIC participants typically are given vouchers that can be used to purchase specific food items at participating stores.
The program now serves about 8 million women, children and infants a month and has an annual budget in excess of $5 billion nationally. In Randolph County, public health officials distributed $2.3 million in WIC vouchers last year.
According to the USDA Food & Nutrition Service website:
“WIC provides nutritious foods, nutrition education, and referrals to health and other social services to participants at no charge. WIC serves low-income pregnant, postpartum and breast-feeding women, and infants and children up to age 5 who are at nutrition risk.”
WIC is not an entitlement program, meaning Congress does not set aside funds to allow every eligible individual to participate in the program. There is a set amount of funding.
Cooper explained that applicants are screened for financial, medical and nutritional eligibility before being accepted into the program. It is possible, she said for someone to be financially eligible for the WIC program but not meet nutritional or medical criteria.
Regardless, her department has not seen a shortfall in the local program.
“There is no waiting list for WIC vouchers,” she said. “I’ve never run out of money for the program — never had more applicants than funds.”
Who is eligible?
The program is available to those who are low income (185 percent of poverty or below) and are at nutritional risk, including:
x Pregnant women (through pregnancy and up to 6 weeks after birth or after pregnancy ends).
x Breast-feeding women (up to infant’s first birthday).
x Non-breast-feeding postpartum women (up to 6 months after the birth of an infant or after pregnancy ends).
x Infants up to their first birthday.
x Children up to their fifth birthday.
The legal status of the applicant is not considered.
Benefits provided to WIC participants include supplemental nutritious foods, nutrition education and counseling at WIC clinics and screening and referrals to other health, welfare and social services.
A broader view
Cooper is not caught up in the illegal immigration debate.
The public health department is charged with administering the WIC program to those in need — and that includes Hispanics who meet the eligibility requirements, she said.
According to local public health documents, a third of the participants in the county program are Hispanics; however, Anglos as a group are the largest users of WIC benefits in Randolph County. Documents indicate 58 percent of all WIC vouchers go to Anglos. Just over 7 percent go to African-Americans. Hispanics use 34.6 percent of all WIC vouchers in the county. Of the 3,621 participants in the county’s program, 1,345 are Hispanic.
Based on those figures, Hispanics use a higher proportion of benefits than is reflected in their population figures. In Randolph, the most recent census figures place the total population as 83.7 percent Anglo, 5.6 percent African-American, 9 percent Hispanic and 1.7 percent other.
From Cooper’s standpoint, if her department does not intercede before health problems arise, the whole community suffers, regardless of ethnic breakdown.
“If someone lives here, their health affects that of their neighbor,” she said. “If we don’t protect everyone, we all get sick.”
Practical reasons
According to officials, there is a very practical basis for the decision to provide preventative medical assistance, including immunizations, without regard to legal status.
Disease does not respect ethnic barriers.
Shortly after the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 was passed prohibiting illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits, there was an outbreak of rubella or German measles in New York. It reached epidemic proportions in that state.
According to CDC records, the first reported case in Westchester County was a 23-year-old man from Mexico who first noticed a rash on Dec. 6, 1997. He was exposed previously to a Hispanic co-worker with rubella in Port Chester, N.Y., who resided in Connecticut, where there was an ongoing rubella outbreak.
Officials noted, “The rubella outbreak in Westchester County occurred among young Hispanic adults who were born in countries either without national rubella vaccination programs or where such programs were implemented recently.”
The outbreak did not remain localized. The disease spread to 14 towns, cities and communities. Government officials reported that immigrants were reluctant to ask for assistance from health clinics because of changes mandated by the Welfare Reform Act and they feared deportation.
The problem is not limited to rubella. Tuberculosis happens in foreign-born populations at a rate of nine times as high as in U.S.-born persons, CDC reports. Other potentially deadly diseases include polio, Hansen’s disease and diphtheria.
Beyond communicable diseases, there are concerns about disorders that are manageable in early stages but devastating in later stages. Hispanic populations are six times more likely than non-Hispanics to suffer from diabetes, according to CDC reports.
Pre-mature deaths from diseases of the heart is higher for Hispanics (23.5 percent) than for non-Hispanics (16.5), reports the American Heart Association. The American Cancer Society reports Hispanics are less likely than non-Hispanics to receive screening examinations such as a mammogram, Pap test, or sigmoidoscopy. They are at greater risk than non-Hispanics for developing stomach, liver and cervical cancers.
The question becomes, does denying healthcare access to an individual who is already in the community — even if that person is here illegally — help or harm the community?
Public health departments have been caught squarely in the middle of the debate and have been mandated by the federal government to take a blind eye to it.
The illegal factor
The 1996 Welfare Reform Act excluded illegal immigrant populations from many federal benefit programs. However, in May 1999, former President Bill Clinton’s administration changed that. Officials re-interpreted existing laws to help ensure that immigrant families could get health care and other critical benefits.
The decision meant those families had access to immunizations, testing and treatment for communicable disease and nutrition programs.
Studies cited at the time by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Census Bureau indicated that Hispanic families with children are more at risk for malnutrition than other groups.
For better or worse, the federal government does not take a “black or white” approach to illegal immigrants. In other words, government officials have not taken the stance of, “If you are here illegally, you have no right to benefits or assistance.”
The federally funded WIC voucher program is one example.
Some other examples according to a 2002 study done by the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University include:
x Under Permanently Residing Under the Color of Law (PRUCOL), illegal immigrants can qualify for Medicaid without fear of forced departure. Under the measure, states can obtain a federal waiver allowing them to provide state-financed health coverage to certain illegal immigrants.
x In May 2000, a U.S. Federal Court ruled that infants under one year of age whose parents are illegal immigrants are eligible for Medicaid until they reach one year of age.
x Under federal policy, illegal immigrants are eligible for free public health care in the form of emergency medical services as a result of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). Medicare Disproportionate Share (DSH) payments also allow uncompensated care costs to be covered and does not examine whether the uninsured receiving such care are illegal immigrants or not.
xxx
For more information, go to the Food & Nutrition Service website at .
xxx
Contact staff writer J.D. Walker at 626-6118 or email her at .
http://www.courier-tribune.com/articles ... ws/gn1.txt

Under Permanently Residing Under the Color of Law (PRUCOL), illegal immigrants can qualify for Medicaid without fear of forced departure. Under the measure, states can obtain a federal waiver allowing them to provide state-financed health coverage to certain illegal immigrants.

What in the heck is "Permanently Residing Under the Color of Law"?

I was unaware there was a color of law and it makes no sense anyway.

Diana, that was a good question..........here's the answer.............

Q. Do all federal criminal civil rights violations require racial, religious, or ethnic hatred? If not, what does "color of law" mean?

A. Official misconduct and slavery cases (such as police beatings and migrant worker exploitation) do NOT require that the law enforcement officer or exploiter have acted out of hatred for the victim because of the victim's race, national origin, color, or religion. However, there are several laws that do require that the unlawful acts be based upon such a discriminatory motivation. These include housing and religious interference or acts intended to prevent an individual from enjoying certain federal rights (voting, employment, use of public facilities or access to health care [gender]).

"Color of law" is a legal term used in official misconduct cases. It means that the law enforcement officer acted while abusing the authority given to him or her by reason of his or her employment as a public official.

Very important article....

Documents indicate 58 percent of all WIC vouchers go to Anglos. Just over 7 percent go to African-Americans. Hispanics use 34.6 percent of all WIC vouchers in the county. Of the 3,621 participants in the county’s program, 1,345 are Hispanic.

Based on those figures, Hispanics use a higher proportion of benefits than is reflected in their population figures. In Randolph, the most recent census figures place the total population as 83.7 percent Anglo, 5.6 percent African-American, 9 percent Hispanic and 1.7 percent other

Check out the percentages for yourself.

I could go on...point being that illegal aliens, the majority of the invasion right now being Hispanic across the Mexican border states, do indeed get social services which cost the taxpayers in each state money.

Disease does not respect ethnic barriers.

Illegal aliens come in to our country without a health screening.

I will reiterate that I have a disabled daughter unable to qualify for assistance although the gov't doorkeeper doc, has written that the rare disease she has is progressive and that she is unable to work. To her face, in a Social Security office, she was told that she is "white... so you can work".

She is seeking legal assistance, but should NOT have to go through this. She should NOT have to pay a lawyer to get the help she needs. She PAID taxes for years!!! She's paid taxes since she was a teen-ager!!!!!

Just ask me if I think this situation stinks on ice!!! And makes me furious!!

I reiterate: I do not mind LEGAL IMMIGRATION from any country...I simply want our laws enforced and obeyed. See my sig.

Martha Sheriff, the local DSS director, said her department is not allowed to give out food stamps or other benefits to illegal immigrants.

I think this is a bit misleading. Correct me if I am wrong but I would imagine that anchor babies very much do qualify hence illegals qualify indirectly.

That's what I've been saying folks, NC is being taken over by Aliens......legal? AND ILLEGALS.........Not just Mexicans either.........this place if full of all kinds. Chinese, Pakistani's, Vietnamese, Jamacians and now we are getting alot from South Africa........you name it......they are here.....10 fold..and very, very few of them speak English. But a whole lot less of us LEGAL AMERICAN CITIZENS. The border towns think they have it bad, they should see it here. That is about all Randolph County is is Hispanics. And very few of them speak English. Guilford County and Davidson County is almost as bad as it is here. I don't know how it is around Raleigh, but here it is pretty bad and getting worse every day.
AlturaCt..........you ought to have to go to the Dept of Social Services here..........they tell you right up front......Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are Hispanic days ONLY........the waiting room is FULL of little bambinos running everywhere...........but like it says, the rest of the family gets food stamps too.............just prorated
I was born and raised here and this is really sad to see what has happened here. Our factories are about all gone...........to Mexico and China........everywhere you look it's foreign this and foreign that.......and everything is in a foreign language around here about. Drugs galore in these counties and cities. It's sad to see what the government has done to nice little rural suburbs like Sophia, Randleman and Thomasville.
I've complained for years to our politicians but it hasn't done any good.