I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Starting in October, up to 11,000 impoverished refugees admitted to the U.S. because of persecution in their home countries will lose access to federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
More than 5,000 refugees will be removed from the SSI rolls Oct. 1, as a temporary SSI eligibility extension for refugees passed by Congress in 2008 begins to run out, according to the report.
“The people who will be affected by this cutoff are impoverished elderly or disabled refugees who fled persecution in other countries, cannot work, and have few other supports and resources,” the report states. “They have fled their homelands because they suffer a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Large numbers came from the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Indochina, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, the former Yugoslavia, or other troubled places.”
Refugees applying for SSI must be over 65 years or seriously disabled, and have little or no income or financial assets. The maximum SSI payment in 2010 is $674 per month for an individual — below the poverty line.
“Congress should act quickly to avert the severe hardship that this small but vulnerable group would face,” the report states. “Lawmakers should also consider going beyond temporary stopgap measures and adopting permanent legislation that recognizes these refugees’ unique circumstances.”
Extensions running out
Congress limited immigrants’ eligibility for federal assistance benefits as part of welfare reform legislation in 1996.
The reforms declared most legal immigrants ineligible for SSI. But an exemption was granted to political refugees during their first five years in the U.S.
But in most cases, immigrants and refugees are not allowed to apply for naturalized U.S. citizenship until they have legally resided in the U.S. continuously for five years, so lawmakers subsequently extended that window of support for refugees to seven years after arriving in the U.S., the report states — enough time for disabled and elderly refugees to become naturalized citizens and apply for continuing SSI support.
“At that time, offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) were struggling to reduce a huge backlog of naturalization applications, including some from desperate SSI recipients,” the report states. “Newspapers reported several suicides by people facing loss of their SSI benefits.”
To provide refugees enough time to apply for citizenship, Congress temporarily extend refugees’ seven-year SSI limit to nine years in 2008, if refugees could prove they were actively pursuing U.S. citizenship.
“That temporary extension expires on September 30, 2011, three years after enactment,” the report states.
