Lawyers Manual - Unified Court System

356 Barbara Weiner
curtailed the eligibility of immigrants for public benefits. A new benefits-related
immigrant eligibility category was created, that of “qualified alien” (“qualified
immigrant”). This is not itself an immigration status but rather encompasses a
list of immigration statuses. A noncitizen must be in one of these statuses to be
considered eligible for public benefits. Included in the qualified immigrant
category are:
lawful permanent residents (LPR or “green card” holders);
humanitarian-based immigrants (refugees, asylees,
Amerasians, Cuban/Hatian entrants, and persons granted
withholding of deportation);
public interest parolees who have been granted entry to the US
for a period of at least a year; and
an immigrant spouse or child of a US citizen or lawful
permanent resident who has been battered or subjected to
extreme cruelty and who has filed or is the beneficiary of a
family-based immigration petition that is pending or has been
approved. 2
In order to be eligible for means-tested federal benefits, PRWORA required
that qualified immigrants meet additional requirements. What those requirements
are depends in part upon the particular program and which immigration status the
person holds. The federal means-tested benefit programs include four major
assistance programs:
the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, the
federal income assistance program for indigent elderly and
disabled persons;
Temporary Assistance to Families (TANF), the federal cash
assistance program for families with children;
the Food Stamp Program, nutritional assistance for
households with net income at or below the federal poverty
level; and
the Medicaid and Child Health Plus program, the federal
and state cooperatively funded program to provide medical
assistance to low income persons.
A general rule in all these programs is that qualified immigrants (with the
exception of humanitarian-based immigrants) who arrive in the US after August
of 1996 must reside in the US in a qualified status for five years before they will
be considered eligible for a federal means-tested benefit program (known as the