Investor's Business Daily, August 21, 1997
By David A. Price

Social worker Greta Heinemeier is frustrated. She wants to find places for needy seniors in a public housing complex in the well-to-do Silicon Valley town of Cupertino, Calif. But there's a long waiting list.

The problem: Some 40% of the residents in the complex are the parents of monied Taiwanese immigrants.

Their sons and daughters brought them into the US under laws that allow unlimited immigration of citizens' parents. The children simply had to promise the Immigration and Naturalization Service that their folks wouldn't become public charges.

Yet they're now in subsidized housing and getting welfare checks.

"I really would like to provide housing for people who need it," said Heinemeier, admissions coordinator for the complex.

It's not an isolated case. Across the nation. more and more elderly immigrants — mostly the parents of immigrants already here — are coming to the U.S. And they're drawing from generous welfare programs: Medicaid, housing, Supplemental Security income.

Because they've paid little or nothing in U.S. taxes, these older immigrants — though living here legally — are a drain on taxpayers, critics charge. One study puts the lifetime cost of cach new elderly immigrant at roughly $150,000.

And that cost adds up fast. In fiscal '96, nearly 67.000 people 60 or older came to the country legally. That accounts for more than 7% of all immigrants let in. Almost 22,000 were 70 or older.

Critics want to make it harder for old aliens to come in and get on the dole.

"Where there are sponsors who can afford to take care of these people, they should be living up to their responsibility," said Rosemary Jenks of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors tighter immigration control. "It's not up to American taxpayers to pay for people who come here."

Congress tried to tighten the rules. The '96 welfare reform law cut noncitizens off from federal welfare benefits. But this year's budget deal restored all benefits but food stamps to all immigrants — young or old — already living in the U.S.

Immigrant-rights groups don't think that's enough. In addition, they want those seniors brought over by their children in the future to be eligible.

"I would hope that Congress, along with the advocate community. will work to find ways to provide some kind of safety net for these elderly and frail individuals," said Yvonne Lee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

The revised law restores SSI benefits to some 360,000 elderly immigrants here. SSI — intended for the aged, blind and disabled — is the main cash welfare program used by older aliens. It's also the fastest-growing federal entitlement

From '86 to '94, the number of legal aliens — elderly or otherwise — on SSI grew an average of 15% per year. In contrast, the program overall grew only 5% over the same period, says the General Accounting Office. By late '95, the GAO found, immigrants accounted for almost one-third of the elderly on SSI, up from less than 6% in 1982.

The benefits aren't small change. The top federal monthly payment is $470 for an individual or $705 for couple. And all but seven states add payments on top of that. Those on SSI qualify for Medicaid as well.

Over the next five years the federal cost of elderly immigrants on SSI and Medicaid will total more than $7 billion, the Congressional Budget Office says. That doesn't count the money states kick in.

But Lee says that the rise in the number of immigrants on welfare programs grams is not a sign of abuse.

For example, Chinese use of SSI climbed in the '80s. But that was due to a federal outreach program to let immigrants know about the benefits, Lee says.

"If the government is telling you that you are eligible, some people do apply" Lee said. "They are not committing an kind of crime."

Still, immigrants who come to the U S. as seniors go on welfare at a high rate. More than a third of immigrants over 65 who had been sponsored for entry between '80 and '87 were on welfare in '90, Norman Matloff of the University of California at Davis found.

And, on average, older immigrants cost more.

Young immigrants may need public education and other tax-funded benefits. But over their lifetimes they will tend to pay taxes that more than offset those costs, according to a recent National Academy of Sciences report.

Older aliens, on the other hand, are net burdens.

The crossover point from net benefit to net burden is around age 41, according to the NAS study. That is, immigrants who are older than 41 when they enter the U.S. are likely to pay less in state and federal taxes over their life times than they use in public services.

Each immigrant who comes here a age 60 costs taxpayers an average of nearly $150,000. the study found.

Federal law on the issue has gone through twists and turns in the past year.

Children and other close relatives usually sponsor elderly immigrants who enter the U.S. Before '96, those immigrants normally couldn't get on SSI for their first five years here. That's because their sponsors' incomes were considered as part of their SSI applications.

The sponsors had to sign a pledge that the immigrant "will not become a public charge in the United States." But that pledge, according to the courts, was not binding.

The '96 welfare reform law, however, banned legal immigrants from getting SSI, Medicaid and food stamps until they became citizens. In signing the law, President Clinton pledged to "correct'' these provisions — and in the latest budget agreement, he was true to his word.

Just the added cost of grandfathering those elderly immigrants on the SSI rolls is $1.9 billion a year, says Philip Gambino of the Social Security Administration.

Immigrants entering after Aug 22 of last year are still barred from the program until they become citizens. Yet it's too earIy to tell whether the legal changes will reduce the flow of those immigrants joining the weflare rolls.

Matloff says there's little practical difference.

For example, before the change, a new immigrant had to wait five years until his sponsor's income was no longer considered as part of his SSI application.

Now, immigrants simply have to wait a bit more than five years to be naturalized. Then they can apply for SSI.

True, sponsors' pledges of support are now binding under '96 immigration law. But that duty expires once the immigrant naturalizes.

Two other changes might have a broader effect.

Immigrants not already on the rolls have to show they're disabled to qualify for SSI. But disability is broadly defined, making it relatively easy to qualify, skeptics say. For instance, alcoholics and drug addicts now qualify for SSI payments under the Americans With Disabilities Act of '90.

And immigrants can't get on Medicaid until they're naturalized. The wait for Medicaid used to be only a year. That longer wait might slow elderly immigration.

Table: Who's A Problem? More Asian aliens become public charges than Hispanics

% of recent immigrants over 65 on welfare
37% All immigrants
34% Sponsored immigrants
47% From China, Hong Kong, Taiwan
41% From Philippines
28% From Iran
50% From Korea
18% From Mexico
50% From USSR
65% From Vietnam

Source: Census Bureau, 1990 Survey