Immigrant Food Stamp Alert:

Immigrants in Receipt of Disability-Based Medicaid May be Eligible for Food Stamp Benefits

December 1, 2002

Author: Barbara Weiner

As reported in the last issue of the Legal Services Journal, the Food Stamp Reauthorization Act of 2002 (the Act) restored immigrant eligibility for  food stamp benefits to all, otherwise eligible, disabled immigrants who meet both the definition of “qualified alien” under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) and the Food Stamp Act’s definition of disability.  This restoration of eligibility was effective October 1, 2002.  Inasmuch as the food stamp eligibility of disabled immigrants who were already in the United States on August 22, 1996, and lawfully residing here, was restored in 1998, the change in law will affect primarily those immigrants who have arrived in the country since August of 1996. 

The definition of “qualified alien” extends beyond lawful permanent residents to include such immigrant classifications as refugees, asylees, Cuban/Haitian entrants and a variety of other immigration statuses.  However, the main beneficiaries of the Act will primarily be lawful permanent residents and battered immigrant spouses and children eligible for adjustment under the special immigrant provisions of the Violence Against Women Act.  If these individuals meet the disability definition under the food stamp law and are otherwise eligible for benefits, they should be getting food stamps.

The rub in all this comes in the requirements an individual must meet in order to be considered disabled under food stamp law.  This is different than the test a food stamp recipient must meet in order to be excused from compliance with the work rules.  In the latter case, an individual need only provide certification from a health care provider that he or she is unable to work.  However, to be considered not just work exempt but disabled under food stamp law, a person must be in receipt of a disability related benefit where the criteria for eligibility are at least as stringent as the test under the Social Security’s Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Title II Disability (SSD) benefit programs.  As a practical matter, most individuals who qualify as disabled for the purposes of the food stamp program are individuals receiving SSI benefits.  The problem is that most immigrants who enter the country after August of 1996 are not eligible for SSI unless they naturalize or can be credited with a significant work history.  In that case, they would be eligible for food stamp benefits anyway, without having to show they meet the definition of disability.  However, the food stamp law also recognizes as disabled persons receiving disability-related Medicaid or state disability related general assistance, as long as eligibility for these programs is based on criteria that are at least as stringent as the SSI or SSD test.  In New York, the eligibility criteria for disability-related Medicaid is the same as the SSI/SSD evaluation of disability.  This means that if an immigrant has a status that meets PRWORA’s definition of “qualified alien” and is in receipt of disability-related Medicaid, they should be getting food stamps if they are otherwise eligible. The Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) issued an Administrative Directive (02-ADM-7) this summer advising local districts of this new basis of food stamp eligibility.  (The ADM notes that the WMS individual Categorical Code in these cases will be 11 or 12.) The eligibility of disabled immigrants who are currently getting regular Medicaid for Disability related Medicaid should be evaluated if the local district has not already done so.

Advocates are encouraged to work with disabled immigrants to ensure that those eligible for food stamps are able to get them.  As with all immigrant public benefits issues, these new rules are complex and local districts may be unaware of them or hesitant to apply them.  Furthermore, there may be other categories of benefits than those listed by OTDA in its ADM that perhaps should also qualify an individual to be considered “disabled” under food stamp law, for example cash Safety Net benefits for certain classifications of disabled individuals.  Please feel free to contact this author at (518) 462-6831 or by e-mail at bweiner@empirejustice.org if you have any questions about this issue or are representing disabled immigrant clients whose eligibility for food stamp benefits you wish to explore.