State Ends Aid for Battered and Elderly Legal Immigrants

January 1, 2005

Author: Amy Schwartz

On September 30, New York State quietly pulled the plug on a small but critical food assistance program which, because of bureaucratic neglect and mismanagement, never delivered on its promise to provide state funded food stamps to elderly immigrants and to immigrants victimized by domestic violence. 

New York State established the Food Assistance Program (FAP) in 1997 to provide state funded food stamp benefits to the most vulnerable among the many lawfully residing immigrants who had been shut out of the federal program in 1996 because they had not yet become citizens. As first enacted, only those immigrants who were elderly, disabled or children were eligible for FAP.  In 2001, recognizing that immigrant victims of domestic violence were also particularly vulnerable, the State authorized them to receive state funded food stamps as well.

FAP was an optional program for the local districts. The counties that agreed to participate contributed half of the cost.  Nevertheless, the vast majority of districts with large immigrant populations signed on, including New York City. 

FAP had one restriction that severely undermined the good it ultimately could do.  To be eligible, the disabled or elderly immigrant, the child or the immigrant victim of domestic violence had to have been living in the US in 1996.  As time went on, the program served fewer and fewer people as the post-1996 immigrant population grew and federal restorations brought most FAP participants who had entered the US before 1996 back into the federal program.

To no avail, advocates tried to persuade the State to eliminate the 1996 cut-off as other states had done when amendments to the federal food stamp program brought many of the immigrants originally participating in state funded programs back into the federal program.  Only the State Assembly and the courts responded; the former passing bills over several sessions that would eliminate the 1996 residency restriction, and the courts by declaring the residency restriction unconstitutional. The Governor and the Senate held firm...the program would be allowed to die.

Contributing greatly to the rapidly shrinking numbers of participants was the failure by the State and the districts to provide FAP benefits even to the small group still eligible, mostly all victims of domestic violence who had been in the country since before August of 1996.  FAP was treated as if it no longer existed.  Over the past few years, each victim of domestic violence or elderly immigrant who finally managed to receive food stamps represented weeks of advocacy, arguing with poorly trained welfare workers whose understanding of the eligibility requirements was dismal.

There were hundreds of erroneous denials.  These mistakes translated into low program participation numbers, which were then used by OTDA as a justification for urging the Senate not to follow the Assembly in re-authorizing the program and removing the 1996 residency restriction. The State's other motive for killing FAP was clearly to undermine New York County Supreme Court Judge Diamond's decision in Teytelman v. Wing that the 1996 residency restriction was unconstitutional.  Allowing the program to sunset was one way to deal with a court decision the State simply did not like.

As a result of the State's maneuvering, a small but critical program that would not have cost very much but could have provided a significant benefit to elderly immigrants and to immigrant families traumatized by domestic violence will no longer be available. Instead, they will have to join the long and growing lines of the hungry at food pantries and soup kitchens. Surely New York should have done better.