Rural Laws: April, 2002 - Number #4

A higher percentage of immigrants than US-born residents receive cash welfare in the US, but the difference narrowed in the 1990s, largely because fewer immigrants in California, which has 11 percent of the US population, and 25 percent of the immigrant population, applied for benefits.

An estimated three million immigrants have arrived in the US since August 22, 1996, when the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act made most immigrants ineligible for benefits until they had worked in the US for 10 years, or became US citizens after five years. The incomes of perhaps a third of them are low enough that they would be eligible, on income grounds, for means-tested federal welfare benefits. However, only 10 to 20 percent of them have applied for benefits, since most foreigners who arrived after August 22, 1996 are not eligible.

In addition to not being eligible, new public charge requirements may play a role. Persons seeking to immigrate to the US must demonstrate that they will not become a "public charge" after entering the US. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 created a new Affidavit of Support, Form I-864, that creates a legal obligation between the government and the US sponsor- the government can sue the sponsor to recoup any public funds spent to support the immigrant being sponsored until the immigrant has naturalized or worked in the US for 10 years. Affidavits of Support are required in all family-based immigration cases and in employment-based cases where the alien is related to the owner of the petitioning company.

Sponsors of immigrants are required to show an income of at least 125 percent of the poverty level for the sponsor's family and the immigrants being sponsored, taken together. Thus, the poverty line for a family of four in 2002 is $18,100, so that a couple sponsoring two parents for immigration would have to show they had an income of at least $22,625. Sponsors can rely on all sources of income, and assets that can be converted to cash within one year.

The US welfare debate in 2002 is far different than it was in 1996. Work requirements and time limits for people on welfare are now widely accepted as the best way to help poor people avoid dependence on government assistance. Most experts agree that the data are moving in the right direction: caseloads are down, employment is up, and poverty rates are down, particularly among children and minority children.

The focus of the welfare debate in 2002 is on what to do to help ex-welfare recipients who are now working. A common assertion is that ex-recipients are the new "working poor" who will need government help to move up the job ladder. Thus, should the government provide more work support, such as child care, or simply try to improve family stability by, for instance, promoting marriage?

President Bush wants to increase the work requirements for recipients of cash benefits in two ways: (1) An adult on welfare would be required to work a 40-hour week, up from the current 30 hours, although as much as 16 of those 40 hours could be in education and training activities; (2) states would be required to have 70 percent of their welfare caseload working by 2007, up from about 30 percent currently.

New York. F. Brandon Mallory, whose Agri-Placement Services of Macedon, Wayne County was launched in 1999, said that the Hispanic share of the farm work force in upstate New York has climbed above 90 percent. According to Mallory, the farm work force was 60 percent Hispanic on fruit and vegetable farms in 1991, and was 90 percent Hispanic in 2001. Agri-Placement recruits Mexican and Guatemalan workers for local growers. New York dairy farms, which have about 7,000 non-family employees, include at least 700, or 10 percent, Hispanics.

Utah. Latinos-90 percent of whom are Catholic-are an increasingly visible presence in Utah, where most residents are Mormon. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of Hispanics in Utah rose by 138 percent, to 200,000. In Fall 2001, 69 unauthorized workers were arrested for using false documents to obtain jobs at the Salt Lake City airport. Many were charged with felonies; if convicted, they will be removed from the US and unable to return because of the felony conviction.

One Catholic priest said: "The Mormon church has always seen the immigrant population as potential converts, and their whole thrust is to convert them. They've kind of reached an impasse where the Mexican community doesn't want to convert, the Mormon community doesn't really want them there, and they don't know how to deal with each other."

Iowa. In August 2001, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged in a lawsuit that three men working at DeCoster Farms sexually assaulted women at the company's four egg plants in Clarion, Iowa over the course of two years. According to the women who complained, the men threatened to kill or fire the egg packers if they reported the assaults. DeCoster denied any knowledge of the assaults.

Since the EEOC lawsuit was filed, three former DeCoster supervisors have been charged with harboring illegal migrants. One pleaded guilty, and 32 unauthorized workers were apprehended at the DeCoster plant in February 2002.

Economic Development. The New York Times on February 16, 2002 reported that many small rural communities that produce commodities are suffering from low prices, with little hope of an upturn to end the traditional boom-bust cycle in rural America because of freer international trade. The article concluded that "industries that have been declining for years may be dying out." In Halifax, Virginia, for example, the economic pillar shifted from tobacco to textiles, but now that industry is in decline.

Loving, Texas is the nation's least populous county, with 67 people, and has an economy based on hard-to-extract oil. It is likely to lose population.

Mark Siebert, "Egg plant workers ready for case," Des Moines Register, February 14, 2002. Kim Murphy, "Olympic Hospitality an Irony for Utah Latinos," Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2002.