Federal Policy for Immigrant Children

Policymakers and analysts agree on the need to improve
the well-being of children in immigrant families in the
United States?for example, in the areas of public benefi
ts, education, and economic mobility?but disagree
about how to address the problems. The authors of this
policy brief are no exception. Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow
at the Brookings Institution and Senior Editor of The Future
of Children, seconds the decision of Congress in the
1996 welfare reform law to make noncitizens ineligible
for public assistance and Medicaid. He emphasizes the
need to tie public benefi ts for immigrant families to work
through such policies as education and training and the
earned income tax credit for families with children. Mark
Greenberg, Director of Policy at the Center for Law and
Social Policy, and Shawn Fremstad, Deputy Director of
the Welfare and Income Support Division at the Center
for Budget and Policy Priorities, argue that noncitizen
families should have the same eligibility for public assistance
as citizen families and support greater fi nancial aid
for early childhood education and other forms of schooling.
The hope of all three authors, however, is that researchers
and public offi cials will continue to search for
common ground to improve life for children of immigrant
families, most of whom will grow up as Americans.
n 2000, about 11 percent of the U.S. population?32
million people?was foreign-born. Many of these
immigrants are parents of children who are either
immigrants or, more commonly, U.S. citizens themselves.
As a result, one in every fi ve children in the United
States now lives in an immigrant family.
Children from immigrant families will play an important
role in the nation?s future. These families have accounted
for large shares of U.S. population and employment
growth and will continue to do so. Most children of
immigrants will be lifelong U.S. residents and will become
part of the nation?s workforce. Some will serve in the U.S.
military; some will be manual workers; others will become
teachers or doctors. These children will play a crucial role
in the viability of Social Security and Medicare?in fact,
the Congressional Budget Offi ce reports that the Social
Security shortfall will increase if immigration falls below
current levels. Even apart from the humanitarian reasons
that some observers see as an adequate basis for attention
to the circumstances of immigrant children, policies that
help these children become successful adults are squarely
in the national interest.
Although the United States is the prototypical ?nation
of immigrants,? it is worth noting that increased migration
is a global trend. Most other developed nations are
seeing similar increases in immigration; immigrants comprise
more than 15 percent of the population in more
than 50 counties and account for large proportions of
population and employment growth in most developed
countries. Some of these countries, Canada in particular,
have done more than the United States to develop ?immigrant
integration? policies to maximize the economic
and social benefi ts of immigration.
This is a favorable time for seeking consensus on U.S.
policies affecting immigrant children. Even though issues
such as policy toward undocumented immigrants and
English-only requirements can be divisive, immigration
generally has not been a major electoral issue in recent
years. Public opinion research shows that the share of
Americans who think that immigration is good for the
nation increased in the year following 9/11. Moreover,
about four out of every fi ve Americans think that lawfully
admitted immigrants should be treated the same way as
U.S. citizens under the law. The relative lack of political
intensity on immigration?particularly on policy that
relates to the treatment of immigrants who have already
been legally admitted to the United States?provides an
opening to consider appropriate policies.
I
The Future
of Children
Federal Policy for Immigrant Children:
Room for Common Ground?
By Ron Haskins, Mark Greenberg, and Shawn Fremstad
A publication of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution
Volume 14, Number 2
Summer 2004
POLICY BRIEF
Children in Immigrant Families
Children of immigrants face several diffi culties that children
of native-born parents do not, including adapting to
cultural norms that may differ from those of their parents
and learning a language that may not be spoken at home.
The poverty rate of children in immigrant families is 21
percent, as against 14 percent for children in native-born
families. Nearly half of children in immigrant families have
family incomes below 200 percent of poverty compared
with only 34 percent of native children. Given the evidence
that poverty is detrimental to the development of children,
poverty among children of immigrants is reason for concern.
Children of immigrants are more likely than children
of native-born parents to be in families worried about or
encountering diffi culties paying for food. They are nearly
twice as likely to lack health insurance, and they are more
than four times as likely to live in crowded housing.
Research by Don Hernandez has shown that children of
immigrants are at increased risk for poor developmental
outcomes. Hernandez has calculated the share of children
exposed to four risk factors?having a mother without a
high school diploma, being economically deprived, living
in a linguistically isolated household, and living in a single-
parent family?that correlate with poor development.
Some 67 percent of children born to immigrants had one
or more of these risk factors and 17 percent had three; only
45 percent of children born to native parents had at least
one risk factor and only 4 percent had three.
Despite their higher poverty and hardship rates, low-income
children in immigrant families are less likely to receive
public assistance than other low-income children.
Although citizen children of immigrant parents are not
subject to any of the public assistance eligibility restrictions
that apply to noncitizens (see below), they are less likely
to receive income assistance and food stamps than citizen
children with native-born parents. In 1999, only about 8
percent of low-income families headed by lawful permanent
residents received income from Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF), compared with 12 percent of
low-income citizen families. Similarly, low-income noncitizen
children are about half as likely to participate in Medicaid
as low-income citizen children. This gap existed before
passage of the noncitizen eligibility restrictions in 1996,
but has widened in recent years.
What Accounts for Higher Poverty
In Immigrant Families?
Children in immigrant families have a high rate of poverty
largely because their parents are much more likely to hold
low-wage jobs than other parents. In 2002, nearly half of
foreign-born workers were low-wage workers. Randy Capps
has found that immigrants account for a disproportionate
share of the nation?s low-wage workforce?14 percent of
all workers, but 20 percent of all low-wage workers. And
immigrants are about 50 percent more likely than natives
to earn less than the minimum wage.
Poor education and weak English profi ciency both contribute
to immigrants? lower wages. Among immigrant lowwage
workers, most (62 percent) have limited profi ciency
in English, and nearly half have not completed high school.
Controlling for differences in education and other factors,
immigrants who are profi cient in English earn about 17
percent more than immigrants who are not. Other factors
such as discrimination, geographic and linguistic segregation,
and lack of bargaining power also likely affect immigrants?
earnings.
Marital status does not appear to contribute to immigrants?
higher poverty rate. Low-income immigrants are more
likely to be married than low-income natives. Hernandez
has shown that only about 15 percent of immigrant children
live with a single parent, as against 26 percent of native
children (although the share of two-parent immigrant
families declines in subsequent generations). Moreover, the
Urban Institute has found that among children in two-parent
families in 1999, those in immigrant families were three
times as likely to be poor as those in native-born families?
18 percent as compared with only 6 percent.
Nor are immigrants? higher poverty rates attributable to
low employment rates. Immigrant fathers are just as likely
to work full-time, year-round, as are native fathers. About
80 percent of both groups of fathers are employed fulltime.
Thus, policies designed to increase labor force participation
and hours of work are unlikely to have a signifi cant
impact on immigrant poverty.
Public Benefi t Policy
The 1996 welfare reform law made most legal noncitizens
ineligible for TANF and Medicaid during their fi rst fi ve
years in the United States. It also restricted their eligibility
for food stamps and supplemental security income (SSI).
The restrictions directly affected the eligibility of children
who are not citizens and also likely affected citizen children
of immigrant parents. In some of the programs, particularly
food stamps, their participation fell at a much faster
rate than that of citizen children of native-born parents.
Four developments softened the effects of the 1996 provisions.
First, most states chose to use state funds to restore
some or all benefi ts. Second, only a few states elected to
deny TANF and Medicaid to noncitizens for more than fi ve
years. Third, citizenship rates increased in the 1990s. And,
fi nally, Congress lifted several of the original restrictions.
Even so, there is little question that the restrictions increased
hardship for many noncitizens. George Borjas
found that ?food insecurity? increased among noncitizens
in states that did little to provide replacement benefi ts,
while it declined among noncitizens in other states. Leighton
Ku and Matt Broaddus found that noncitizen children
living in states without state-funded health care programs
for noncitizens are much less likely to have health insurance
than noncitizen children living in states that have such programs
and that the difference is attributable to lower rates
of public coverage (private coverage rates for noncitizen
children are similar in the two groups of states).
Volume 14, Number 2
Policy Brief Page 2
www.futureofchildren.org
The authors of this brief do not agree on whether legal
noncitizens should have the same eligibility for public assistance
as citizens. Haskins largely supports the current
restrictions. He believes that the long-standing public
charge provision in immigration law, which bars entry to
immigrants without means of support, is the correct policy
and is consistent with the restrictions. If noncitizens fall on
hard times before they gain citizenship, many have sponsors
who have signed a legally binding document requiring
them to provide support. Thus, the primary line of defense
against destitution for noncitizens should be sponsors.
Along with others who oppose welfare eligibility for noncitizens,
Haskins holds that America offers immigrants one
of the best bargains in the world: immigrants who come
to America are privileged to enjoy vast individual freedom,
to live in a society governed by principles of law and moral
behavior, and to join one of the world?s most prosperous
economies. All the nation requires in return is that noncitizens
obey the law and avoid receiving certain federally
funded public benefi ts until they become citizens.
Greenberg and Fremstad argue that legal noncitizens
should qualify for public assistance on the same terms as
citizens. Immigrant children should have the same access
to public programs that reduce hardship and improve life
chances as the citizen children they sit next to at school. If
it is in the national interest for all children to be ready for
school and grow up to be the most productive citizens they
can be, it is shortsighted to deny noncitizen children the
same access to health care, adequate nutrition, and stable
housing as citizen children. Greenberg and Fremstad agree
that sponsors should assist the immigrants they sponsor,
but they note that public assistance and private sources of
support are not mutually exclusive for citizens and should
not be mutually exclusive for legal immigrants.
Greenberg and Fremstad also disagree with Haskins?s interpretation
of the public charge provision, which they
believe offers little historical support for the post-1996
restrictions. Treasury Department documents from the period
when the public charge provision was fi rst enacted describe
a public charge as someone who is unable to ?earn a
living? because of ?accident, bodily ailment, or disease, or
physical inability.? Similarly, case law from the nineteenth
century holds that ?persons in full possession of their faculties,
sound in body, neither paupers, vagrants, nor criminals,
and in all respects competent to earn a livelihood? are
not public charges. Thus, they believe the public charge
provision has little applicability to the current public assistance
system that helps families get back into the labor
force after losing work and meet basic needs when employers
fail to pay a living wage.
They also note that the principle that a nation?s laws should
welcome immigrants by extending the same helping hand
to them that is extended to citizens is one that compassionate
conservatives should support. President Bush has
proposed restoring food stamps and SSI benefi ts for certain
immigrants, has given states the option to extend state
child health insurance (SCHIP) prenatal care benefi ts to
undocumented women, and has called on the nation to
?build a culture of life in which the sick are comforted,
the aged are honored, the immigrant is welcomed, and
the weak and vulnerable are never overlooked.? Even the
Center for Immigration Studies, which sides with Haskins
on most other immigration policy issues, argues that legal
immigrants who are required to pay taxes and meet other
civic obligations should have the same opportunity to obtain
public assistance as other taxpayers.
Greenberg and Fremstad urge a return to the traditional
principle of equal treatment of citizens and legal immigrants
that prevailed in public assistance programs before
1996. Haskins argues that a repeal of the federal restrictions
would be wrong in principle, would be prohibitively
expensive, and is unlikely as long as Republicans control
either the presidency or at least one House of Congress.
Greenberg and Fremstad concede that an immediate lifting
of all special immigrant restrictions is unlikely but believe
that bipartisan support exists for measures similar in scale
to Congress?s recent restoration of food stamp benefi ts for
many legal immigrants, which expanded President Bush?s
proposal to restore food stamps to certain legal immigrants.
Congress could start by lifting the restrictions on TANF,
which would cost the federal government nothing; restoring
Medicaid for children and pregnant women (a measure
that has passed the Senate with bipartisan support);
and passing bipartisan legislation to extend SSI benefi ts for
refugees.
Haskins argues for a more limited set of modifi cations that
ties eligibility directly to work. He points out that federal
law already refl ects the policy of helping immigrant workers.
The 1996 reforms explicitly declared legal immigrants
eligible for a host of programs that provide education and
training. Even more important, parent workers who are legal
residents of the United States and authorized to work
also are eligible for the earned income tax credit (EITC), a
wage supplement paid to low-income workers through the
tax code. Increasing federal EITC payments (which provide
up to $2,500 for one child or up to $4,200 for two or
more children, depending on income), encouraging more
states to offer their own EITC payments, and making sure
eligible immigrant families receive the payments would increase
the fi nancial security of immigrant families.
Haskins offers several other ways to reward work by immigrant
parents. States, at their option, could be permitted
to use TANF dollars to provide any of a broad range of
work supports to legal immigrants who are ineligible for
TANF, Medicaid, and food stamps (though Haskins would
still oppose providing cash assistance, even to those working).
An additional step would be to make the noncitizen
children of working immigrant families eligible for Medicaid
and SCHIP.
Greenberg and Fremstad view the Haskins proposal as inconsistent
with the traditional principle that government
should not have a separate, stricter set of rules for legal immigrants
as long as immigrants have the same obligation
Policy Brief Page 3
Volume 14, Number 2 www.futureofchildren.org
to pay taxes and meet other civic duties as citizens. In addition,
they note that Congress rejected tying food stamp
eligibility to work during the debate on the food stamp
restorations in 2002 and that there is no precedent for having
separate work requirements that apply only to immigrants.
The Haskins proposal also would have the effect of
maintaining ineligibility for the noncitizens, such as victims
of domestic violence and people who are temporarily incapacitated,
who could most benefi t from help in transitioning
to work. Fremstad and Greenberg believe that public
assistance should help immigrants and citizens alike when
they lose jobs and need assistance to reenter the workforce
and meet their basic needs.
Education Policy
Three policies could address the educational defi cits of
immigrant children. First, achieving the goal of equality
of educational opportunity requires good public schools.
Many immigrant children attend underperforming schools,
and even better-performing schools may not have effective
programs for English-language learners. Under the No
Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, assessment results and state
progress objectives must be broken out by student groups
based on poverty, race and ethnicity, disability, and limited
English profi ciency. These and other provisions of NCLB
hold promise for immigrant children, though Greenberg
and Fremstad, along with many in immigrant communities,
have serious concerns that insuffi cient federal funding may
limit NCLB?s effectiveness.
A second policy to help immigrant children is early childhood
education. Research shows that high-quality preschool
programs can have lasting effects on school performance.
But three- and four-year-old children in immigrant
families are less likely than children in native-born families
to participate in nursery school or preschool programs.
Moreover, little is known about the quality of the programs
they attend or about the extent of participation by younger
children in immigrant families.
The authors agree about the need to expand early childhood
education programming, but disagree about how to
get there. Haskins argues that federal and state governments
already spend more than $25 billion on preschool
education and child care programs. He proposes giving
states more fl exibility in the use of all sources of federal
funds for preschool programs if they agree to provide at
least one year of high-quality preschool to all four-yearolds
(including immigrants) with family income under, say,
125 percent of poverty. States would also be required to
put up matching funds, to coordinate their programs with
the public schools, to guarantee parent choice in selecting
a preschool, and to evaluate the effects of their program.
Congress should appropriate at least $100 million annually
to provide additional funding to participating states.
Greenberg and Fremstad respond that existing early care
and education programs are seriously underfunded and
that a larger federal and state fi scal commitment is needed
to assure that quality programs are available to children
in immigrant families as well as other children. Child care
funding is not a dedicated funding stream for preschool
programs, and subsidies reach only a small fraction of eligible
families. The picture has deteriorated in recent years
as federal child care funding has remained fl at while other
federal and state sources have become less available. Simply
allowing more discretion in the use of existing funds will
mean, at most, increased services for some groups at the
expense of reduced services for others. Further, there is a
risk that broad discretion in state use of the funds would
be paired with opportunities for states to avoid federal performance
standards and other requirements. To avoid such
results, a federal initiative to provide support for state prekindergarten
programs should be combined with expanded
support for care and education for both older and younger
children. In efforts to promote language acquisition and
immigrant integration, a national policy of waiting until a
child reaches age four has no sound basis. Further, given
that immigrant children are less likely to receive health,
nutrition, and other needed services, any federal initiative
must be structured to ensure that disadvantaged families
have access to comprehensive services.
A third policy involves English profi ciency. Most immigrant
children live in homes in which the primary language
is not English. If school instruction is conducted in English,
those who do not speak English well can do poorly
in many subjects. A debate has raged for decades about
whether immigrant children should be taught in their native
language or English. Because most Americans believe
immigrants should learn English quickly, all questions of
government support for offi cial use of foreign languages to
help non-English speakers face public opposition. Indeed,
California?s ballot initiative on ending bilingual education
in 1998 was approved by 61 percent of the voters.
Even here, there may be room for compromise. Robert
Slavin and Alan Cheung?s recent review of rigorously
evaluated programs found that bilingual reading programs
paired with simultaneous English instruction produced the
most rapid learning. Instructional language was an important
factor, but the most decisive factors were phonics use,
one-to-one or small group tutoring, and extensive reading.
Thus, improving the educational practices of the schools
attended by immigrant children?regardless of instructional
language?should be the primary concern of those
seeking to improve English profi ciency.
Improving the Earnings Potential of Immigrant Parents
One important way to improve the living conditions of immigrant
children is to raise the earnings of their parents by
expanding access to higher education and promoting labor
force advancement. In addition, Greenberg and Fremstad
believe that providing legal immigrants with the same
TANF eligibility as citizens would improve immigrant
parents? access to employment services and that allowing
English language instruction to count toward TANF participation
requirements would increase English profi ciency.
Haskins agrees with this recommendation as long as TANF
funds are not used for cash benefi ts.
Policy Brief Page 4
Volume 14, Number 2 www.futureofchildren.org
Changes to federal law could improve both access to and
the quality of training and other workforce services for limited-
English-profi cient workers. Such reforms include:| structuring workforce-system performance standards
so that they do not discourage providing services
to limited-English-profi cient persons;| encouraging the development of integrated training
programs that combine job training and language
acquisition; and| encouraging one-stop centers to structure career
counseling, vocational assessment, and other services
to meet the needs of limited-English-profi -
ciency customers.
Conclusion
We share the belief that America faces an important challenge:
how to improve the development and well-being
of children in immigrant families. We agree about some
policies for helping these children: more support for working
families, expanded early education opportunities, and
greater efforts to address English language acquisition. We
disagree about other policies, notably, whether to restore
the pre-1996 rules that provided immigrants with the same
public-benefi ts eligibility as citizens and whether to give
states broad discretion over federal child care and early education
funding. We hope that in light of the importance
of these issues for immigrant children and for the nation?s
future, there will be renewed efforts in Washington to fi nd
common ground.
Additional Reading
Borjas, George J. 1999. Heaven?s Door. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton.
Camarota, Steven. 2003. Back Where We Started: An Examination
of Trends in Immigrant Welfare Use Since Welfare Reform.
Washington, D.C.: Center for Immigration Studies.
Capps, Randy, et al. 2003. A Profi le of the Low-Wage Immigrant
Workforce (Brief No. 4). Washington, D.C: The Urban
Institute.
Fix, Michael, and Jeffrey Passel. 2002. The Scope and Impact
of Welfare Reform?s Immigrant Provisions. Washington, D.C.:
Urban Institute.
Fremstad, Shawn. 2002. Immigrants and Welfare Reauthorization.
Washington, D.C.: Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities.
Fremstad, Shawn, and Laura Cox. Forthcoming 2004. Covering
New Americans. Washington, D.C.: The Kaiser Commission
on Medicaid and the Uninsured.
Greenberg, Mark H., and Hedieh Rahmanou. 2004. ?Commentary.?
The Future of Children: ?Children of Immigrant
Families,? 14 (2), 139?45.
Haskins, Ron. 2004. ?Preschool Programs and the Achievement
Gap: The Little Train that Could.? Paper presented at
Harvard University, Kennedy School Conference: ?50 Years
After Brown: What Has Been Accomplished, What Remains
to Be Done?? April 23.
Hernandez, Donald J. 2004. ?Demographic Change and
the Life Circumstances of Immigrant Families.? The Future of
Children: ?Children of Immigrant Families,? 14 (2), 17?48.
Huntington, Samuel. 2004. Who Are We? The Challenges
to American?s National Identity. New York: Simon and
Schuster.
Jacoby, Tamar. 2004. Reinventing the Melting Pot: The New
Immigrants and What It Means to Be American. New York:
Basic Books.
Ku, Leighton, Shawn Fremstad, and Matthew Broaddus.
2003. Noncitizens? Use of Public Benefi ts Has Declined Since
1996: Recent Report Paints Misleading Picture of Impact of
Eligibility Restrictions on Immigrant Families. Washington,
D.C.: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Nightingale, Demetra, and Michael Fix. 2004. ?Economic
and Labor Market Trends.? The Future of Children: ?Children
of Immigrant Families,? 14 (2), 49?60.
National Immigration Law Center. 2002. Guide to Immigrant
Eligibility for Federal Programs. Los Angeles: National
Immigration Law Center.
Portes, Alejandro, and Ruben G. Rumbaut. 2001. Legacies:
The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley: University
of California.
Slavin, Robert E., and Alan Cheung. 2003. Effective Reading
Programs for English Language Learners: A Best-Evidence
Synthesis (Unpublished manuscript). Baltimore: Success for
All Foundation, Johns Hopkins University.
Wrigley, Heide Spruck, et al. 2003. The Language of Opportunity:
Expanding Employment Prospects for Adults with Limited
English Skills. Washington, D.C.: National Adult Education
Professional Development Consortium and Center for Law
and Social Policy.
Takanishi, Ruby. 2004. ?Leveling the Playing Field: Supporting
Immigrant Children from Birth to Eight.? The Future
of Children: ?Children of Immigrant Families,? 14 (2),
61?80.
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and
Means. 2003. The 2003 Green Book: Background Material
and Data on Programs within the Jurisdiction of the Committee
on Ways and Means. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Offi ce, 2004.
Yzaguirre, Raul, et al. 2004. Commentary on Samuel Huntington?s
?The Hispanic Challenge.? Foreign Policy, issue 142
(May/June), pp. 4?13, 84?91.
Policy Brief Page 5
Volume 14, Number 2 www.futureofchildren.org
The Future
of Children
About the Journal
The Future of Children is a joint publication of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public
and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution. This
policy brief is a companion piece for the fi nal issue of The Future of Children published by
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation entitled ?Children of Immigrant Families,?
Volume 14, Number 2, Summer 2004. To view the complete volume, please visit our
website at www.futureofchildren.org.
All journal contents are available free of charge on our web site. Please sign up for our email
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