What Should They Expect of the Social Safety Net?
– Leslie Pickering Francis The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) terminated federal benefits to many immigrants. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) only partially restored these benefits to select immigrants who lawfully resided in the United States before August 22, 1996. Professor Francis discusses how these statutory provisions particularly devastate elderly immigrants. Professor Francis questions the morality of the congressional policy to end immigrants’ dependence on public welfare benefits by analyzing whether Congress’s justifications, which rely on principles of self-sufficiency, nondependency , and nonencouragement , really apply to elderly immigrants. The author finds that the statutes’ termination of federal benefits is immoral when applied to elderly immigrants first because it is unlikely to motivate the typical elderly immigrant to become self-sufficient. She then argues that PRWORA denies the legitimate expectations of e
