The drive towards a balanced federal budget is in the air, visible in several significant events and predictions over the past several months. Most tellingly, the president has been given a line-item veto so that he can extract superfluous pork from Congressional bills. In effect, Congress has asked president Clinton to counteract its own expensive legislative tricks, because Congress has been notoriously successful in circumventing its own laws (witness the 1985 GRH balanced-budget act, which was done away with a few years ago). The line-item veto expires two or three years after Clinton's term ends, and so is intended to provide a powerful short-term impact.
Given the current overall pressure for federal budget cuts, many cutbacks which critics would usually decry as unnecessary should be accepted in the name of pragmatism. Still, certain cuts would be dramatically inconsistent with American notions of justice, not to mention economically unjustifiable if the burden on the affected individuals outweighs the benefits to society from implementing the cuts. The provisions in recent welfare laws which deny aid to certain legal immigrants belong firmly in this category.
According to an article in a recent issue of the New York Times, the National Governors' Association has expressed concern over the fate of "one group of legal immigrants, those who are already in the United States, but who cannot become citizens because of age or disability." First of all, we're talking about legal immigrants here, not illegal border trespassers; these people have a legitimate, legal right to live in the U.S. Secondly, they are only prevented from attaining citizenship by factors beyond their control. What reason could anyone use to justify (or overlook) this draconian age and disability tax?
House Republican majority leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) explained on CNN, "we do not want to encourage people to come here for benefits." Mr. Armey is referring to the "welfare trap," the array of incentives which prompt people to stay on welfare and not work. As economist Charles Murray has shown in empirical studies, the incentives for getting and staying on welfare in the U.S. have increased markedly since the '60s. Despite enormous increases in welfare spending, the number of people under the poverty line increased drastically throughout the '70s and '80s. Murray shows, for example, how a component of welfare, AFDC, would affect the actions of parents who have had, or are considering having, children.
I would argue, however, that prospective immigrants are far less responsive to changes in U.S. welfare incentives than are poor U.S. citizens. Citizens need only deal with the American system to secure their benefits. However, it's reasonable to posit that the average immigrant does not "come here for benefits," as Congressman Armey claims. Immigration is a costly process in terms of time, money, and stress: leaving behind one's country and friends, muddling through the obstacles of TWO bureaucracies (the native country, and the U.S), and adjusting to a whole new cultural environment. With all these costs, surely immigration requires an expectation of greater financial benefits than welfare has to offer, and probably new personal freedoms on top of that. Changing the welfare laws will not substantially alter the rate of immigration to the U.S. Immigrants do not dream of welfare; they dream of relative economic prosperity, and often more personal rights as well.
Critics of this analysis may say, "Granted, but if the new welfare policy creates even a small incentive not to come to America, it'll ease the burden on federal and state spending by a little bit. Cuts have to be incremental, and step-by-step, with more changes like this one, we'll be closer to our ultimate goal. Besides, if immigrants are so insensitive to changes in welfare laws, why not just take away their benefits if they don't care?"
This may be an incremental policy step, but it is a step in the wrong direction. Pragmatism has its limits, and at this point, my argument becomes a matter of values and justice. If there is anything to the idea that we are "a nation of immigrants", and if we value social justice, we must not arbitrarily target these immigrants. Once they are here, legal immigrants (and less controversially, those who pay taxes) are entitled to the same benefits as others who live here, even if age or disability stands in the way of legal citizenship.
The Times article claims, "President Clinton says that the restrictions on benefits for immigrants are not an integral part of the law." At the same time, "More than 40 percent of all the law's savings ... result from restrictions on benefits for legal immigrants." Pardon me, Mr. President, but I'd call 40 percent pretty darn integral!
What's really integral is to integrate these immigrants into our society, not arbitrarily target them for unjust decreases in benefits.
