Since 1996, welfare and immigration legislation has changed legal and illegal immigrants' eligibility for federal programs, dramatically reducing their access to Medicaid, SSI, Food Stamps, and non-cash services. The most drastic change involved the institution of a 5 year ban on many forms of public assistance (and a permanent ban on SSI and food stamps) for legal immigrants who entered the country after 1996.

The Urban Insitute's 2002 National Survey of America's Families shows that the share of low-income children who have immigrant parents increased from 22 percent in 1999 to 26 percent in 2002. The poverty rate for children of immigrants fell from 24 to 22 percent.

The potential impacts on child well-being are significant. About one-fifth of all children under age 18 living in the United States-approximately 14 million children-are immigrants or have immigrant parents. The Farm Bill that was passed in late 2001 restored Food Stamps benefits to legal immigrants who have been in the country for 5 years, legal immigrant children (regardless of time of entry), and legal immigrants with disabilities.

On October 1, 2003, low-income legal immigrant children regained eligibility for the Food Stamp Program. This change in the law was enacted in the 2002 Food Stamp Program Reauthorization Act.

Selected Summary Findings in Brief

Welfare Reform, the Economic and Health Status of Immigrants, and the Organizations that Serve Them (Urban Institute):

• Seventy-five percent of children in immigrant families (at least one parent is a noncitizen) are citizens.
• One in 10 children in the United States lives in a mixed-status family (at least one parent is a noncitizen and one child is a citizen).
• One-quarter of families in New York City and nearly half of all children in Los Angeles live in mixed families
• In New York City, mixed-status families make up 30 percent of all families with children living below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL). In Los Angeles mixed-status families are nearly 60 percent.
• In New York, 70 percent of all undocumented households with children include citizen children. (However, undocumented-headed households are less likely to include children than other immigrant-headed households.)
• Twenty-one percent of all children without health insurance nationwide and over half of the uninsured children in California live in mixed-status families.
• One-third of mixed-status families have incomes below 125 percent of the poverty level, the cut-off under new rules for sponsoring admission of immediate relatives into the country. These policy changes will make it more difficult for immigrant families to unite.