The Department of Health and Human Services is currently considering changing its rules to prevent state money from funding general assistance for immigrants newly arrived in Maine. The proposal is discriminatory and economically senseless.
The rules would make some asylum seekers, some lawful permanent residents, other lawfully present immigrants and people without current documentation ineligible for the emergency assistance that is administered by municipalities and funded with a combination of state and local dollars.
Let’s be clear: The state is spending time, money and energy to change its rules to allow prejudicial decisions to be made against people, who often endured unbelievable horrors in their home countries, to deny them a small amount of money to be able to eat and stay warm.
Even though federal rules do not govern general assistance, the LePage administration wants to apply the same citizenship standards to general assistance as the federal government applies to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
That means when asylum seekers who are not eligible for TANF or SNAP benefits apply at a city or town office for general assistance, that city or town will not be able to receive state matching dollars for providing the assistance. The municipalities would be disqualified from receiving the state dollars even though people seeking asylum legally can’t work during their first months in Maine; sometimes it takes years to be granted asylum.
If the LePage administration thinks this rule change will save money, it is utterly wrong. People need to eat and have a place to sleep, and municipalities will likely continue providing the aid. Local property taxpayers will end up paying for what will be a cost shift.
Indeed, a work group, mandated by the Republican-led Legislature in 2012 to find savings within general assistance, recommended restoring MaineCare, food stamps and TANF benefits to asylum seekers, lawful permanent residents and other lawful immigrants — benefits that had been cut from the 2012-13 biennial budget — to relieve pressure on general assistance. It certainly did not recommend barring certain immigrants from the program.
If the department approves the rule change — the attorney general must first weigh in on its legality — the state will undoubtedly be sued. The legal argument will likely be the following: The rule is unconstitutional, as the 14th Amendment affords protection to resident aliens and citizens alike.
It states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
DHHS’ own guidance to municipalities, used when they have questions about the citizenship status of applicants, urges them to consider the Maine Human Rights Act, which “has non-discrimination requirements that require that public entities cannot deny an individual services or benefits because of race, color, or national origin. As a result, all persons, including those not from Maine and those who are not U.S. citizens, must be provided the opportunity to apply and must be assisted if otherwise eligible.”
For decades, the general assistance program has been based on need; the application process is designed to determine that need based on specific criteria. If the LePage administration wants to alter the program to not be need-based, it should do so openly. Instead, it seems it would rather undermine the integrity of the law governing the program, treat one subset of society differently than others and, essentially, weaken people’s faith in the decency of the state.
Written comments on the proposed rule change are due by midnight on Friday, Jan. 24, and can be sent to General Assistance Program Manager, Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Family Independence, 11 State House Station, 19 Union Street, Augusta, ME 04333, or by email to Dave.MacLean@Maine.gov.
Our suggestion? Flood ’em.