House Considers Effect of Benefit Cutoffs to Elderly and Disabled Refugees

The House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support held a hearing on SSI benefit cutoffs to elderly and disabled refugees.

The House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support held a hearing this week on the plight of elderly and disabled refugees and other humanitarian immigrants who face a cutoff of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and SSI-linked Medicaid benefits because of the time limit on SSI eligibility for humanitarian immigrants. Under current law, humanitarian immigrants who entered the United States after August 22, 1996, and have not been naturalized are no longer eligible for SSI once seven years have passed from the date they were granted refugee or similar immigration status.

But it is often not the fault at all of the immigrants who have failed to obtain citizenship within the seven-year period. Many are unable to be naturalized within the allotted seven-year period because of the lengthy processing delays at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices as well as because of an inability to attain English language proficiency.

In announcing the hearing, Subcommittee Chairman Jim McDermott (D-WA) stated that according to a Social Security Administration (SSA) estimate, over 40,000 such immigrants are likely to lose their SSI benefits over the next 10 years because of this provision.

The first and most compelling witness to testify at the hearing was K’Keng, a 75-year-old Montagnard refugee from the Vietnam central highlands. He was blinded in one eye and suffered a broken hand and broken wrist while serving with U.S. Special Forces in the Vietnam War; he then spent six years as a political prisoner after the communist takeover. K’Keng pointed out that the majority of Montagnard refugees who resettled in the U.S. were over 60 years old at the time of resettlement, and had little or no formal education.

As a result, many found the challenge of attaining English language proficiency to be insurmountable. K’Keng is taking English classes in the hope of one day being able to take the naturalization exam, but in the meantime SSI benefits for him and his wife were terminated. Because of this loss of basic support, K’Keng’s 20-year-old son has had to leave school to work full-time in order to support his parents.

Legislation introduced in the Senate earlier this month would partially address this issue by extending the SSI eligibility period for humanitarian refugees from seven to nine years. See, NSCLC Washington Weekly, March 16, 2007.

That legislation has gained two new sponsors in Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Barack Obama (D-IL). However, the legislation, while providing some relief and which is definitely an improvement, would not resolve the problem of immigrants of advanced age such as K’Keng who are unable to learn English.

For further information, contact Gerald McIntyre in the NSCLC Los Angeles office.