Gore Calls GOP Welfare Fix ‘Un-American’

WASHINGTON —  Vice President Al Gore on Thursday attacked as “un-American” a Republican proposal to restore welfare benefits to some legal immigrants but omit others who would have been protected under the balanced-budget agreement between the White House and Congress.

The author of the GOP plan immediately accused Gore of sinking “below the dignity of his office” and questioned his suitability as a potential presidential candidate.

“I would be very concerned about somebody who would run his mouth off like that as the president of the United States,” said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.), chairman of the House subcommittee on human resources.

The war of words was sparked by a battle over which categories of legal immigrants who currently qualify for supplemental security income will be allowed to receive the cash benefits after provisions of welfare reform laws take effect later this year.

That legislation made most legal immigrants ineligible for most types of federal assistance, but President Clinton vowed to restore some benefits to legal immigrants.

Shaw’s plan would do so by continuing eligibility for all 700,000 elderly and disabled legal immigrants currently on the SSI rolls but disqualifying immigrants who were not yet receiving benefits when the new legislation was signed Aug. 22, 1996.

Under the budget deal agreed to in principle last month, disabled legal immigrants would continue to be eligible for the program now and in the future, but elderly immigrants would lose eligibility.

About 40% of the immigrants receiving SSI live in California, and state and local officials worry that state taxpayers will bear the burden of supporting those cut from the federal program.

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One official close to ongoing negotiations on the issue predicted that in the end, the sides will decide to cover anyone who would be eligible under either plan. Both proposals have been estimated to cost about the same amount over five years--between $9 billion and $10 billion. To include all the people covered by either version would cost an additional $2.4 billion over five years, according to congressional staff analysts.

Gore invited to his press conference a 27-year-old Polish woman who immigrated in 1993 and was working in a shoe factory when she was diagnosed with muscular sclerosis. She applied for SSI in May 1996, and in February, she received two letters from the government. The first said she was medically eligible for SSI; the second, which came days later, said she could not receive SSI because she is not a citizen.

When it was her turn to speak, the woman was overcome with tears and sat sobbing next to Gore as a translator read her statement.

“I did not come to this country to receive charity, and I am ashamed that I must ask for help,” Dorota Kiedos said in her statement. “I ask of this great country understanding and compassion for myself, my family and the many other immigrants like me.”

Gore criticized the GOP plan because it would cover 75,000 fewer people than the competing version between now and 2002. “In my opinion, the Republican plan is un-American,” he said.

Shaw said the plan included in the budget deal is the cruel one because it would cut 300,000 elderly immigrants off SSI who depend on the benefit. The government estimates that two-thirds of those removed from the rolls could reapply and receive the benefits as disabled, but they would face a disruption in their lives in the interim.

“I don’t want to be responsible for this happening,” Shaw said. “I’m not going to back down on this issue.”