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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE: APRIL 23, 2002 House members, Minority Leaders support Baca in restoration of food stamp benefits for immigrants
WASHINGTON - Today, Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), Democratic Caucus Vice-chair Robert Menendez (D -NJ), and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) displayed their support for Rep. Joe Baca's (D-Rialto) motion to restore food stamp benefits to legal immigrants at a press conference on Capitol Hill. "America provides aide to hungry people all over the world, yet we don't take care of everyone who needs help right here at home," said Baca. "The time has come for Congress to ensure that all legal residents are eligible for food stamps." "The Motion I introduced on Thursday instructs the 2002 Farm Security Act Conferees to restore much needed food stamp benefits to legal permanent residents. This is an issue about fairness, and this is an issue about feeding our children." "Strong bi-partisan support already exists in both chambers for restoring food stamps to tax paying, legal immigrants," said Baca. "This support for restoring benefits crosses ideological and partisan lines because it is the right thing to do." Doing the right thing would be very inexpensive. At $200 million, the Children's restoration is already built into the $6.4 billion allotment for the nutrition title, which is a small price when compared to the entire $150 billion Farm Bill. Even better, the CBO says that the work history restoration won't cost the taxpayer a dime. But, Baca said, the most important reason to restore food stamp benefits to immigrants is that immigrant children need food stamps "Children, more than any other group, need access to a healthy diet," said Baca. "We talk a lot about imposing performance standards on kids in school, but how can kids perform when they go to school with empty stomachs?" Baca said that restoring benefits to immigrant children would help with efforts to reach citizen children. Over 85 percent of immigrant families are "mixed status" households that include at least one citizen child, yet many are afraid to apply. Baca also answered critics of food stamp restoration who say that the Senate's version of the Farm Bill, which the CHC advocates, lacks work requirement language. Current food stamp regulations have strict work requirements. Unemployed adults can only receive food stamps for three months in three years. They can only continue to receive food stamps if the work at least 20 hours per week. Legal immigrants are just as likely as natives to work, but they are 2 times as likely to be poor. Currently, a legal immigrant individual or couple that can show a combined work history of 10 years is exempt from the food stamp restrictions on legal immigrants. The notion behind this exemption was that no family with a demonstrated work history should be prohibited access to critical work supports. "The Senate bill Farm bill builds upon this principle of fairness, and so should we," Baca said. "It's time that all hard working, tax paying residents of this country were eligible for the same benefits in times of difficulty." "When tax days rolls around, as it just did, nobody asks whether these people are legal or not, and we shouldn't when deciding whether to help feed their children. This is about fairness. This is about feeding our hungry children." # # # |
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