Advocacy Reaps
Many Rewards

The Michigan Jewish Conference and other
community groups worked hard this year for legal
immigrants. It paid off.

JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER

I

t's been the best year in
decades for Jewish advocacy
in Lansing.
With the help of the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan De-
troit, the Jewish Community
Council, the Lansing lobbying
firm of Muchmore, Harrington,
Smalley and Associates, the
Michigan Jewish Conference
scored important victories on be-
half of legal immigrants, hun-
dreds of them Jews from the
former Soviet Union.
When the state's Family In-
dependence Agency budget was
signed, it provided no relief for
asylees and other legal immi-
grants who stood to lose disabil-
ity and Supplemental Security
Income (SSI) benefits from the
federal government. As in the
federal budget, without full citi-

zenship, the population would
have been knocked off the rolls.
"This whole population
would've been cut off. We were
the ones that brought it to the at-
tention of legislators," said the
MJC's Cindy Hughey.
David Gad-Harf, head of the
JCCouncil, said the Jewish pres-
ence in Lansing, led by the MJC,
was critical to revising legislation
that could have hurt tens of thou-
sands of immigrants.
"This is the first time a critical
issue has come before the state
legislature that affected hun-
dreds of Jewish residents in
metro Detroit and other refugees
outside the Jewish community.
"People have been talking
about the importance of us hav-
ing a presence in Lansing, but
I'm not sure people understood

until this year the value of the in-
vestment. Now it's clear," he said.
Hughey was involved closely
with the budget process at the
Family Independence Agency,
and when the appropriations
committee began to hammer out
a budget, the MJC was able to re-
store over a third of the money
legal immigrants had lost on the
federal level — even if it's only
$246 per month compared to the
up to $700 some had drawn in
SSI benefits.
The Family Independence
Agency, formerly the Depart-
ment of Social Services, oversees
the state's cash assistance, wel-
fare and food stamp programs, of
which the latter has been cut.
The Community Health De-
partment controls another piece
of the pie — Medicaid — and le-
gal immigrants who faced the
loss of SSI benefits also faced the
loss of medical coverage if they
did not become U.S. citizens by
the end of this month. The 7-
year-old Michigan Jewish Con-
ference, with the help of the
JCCouncil and the Federation,
rallied to eliminate the citizen-
ship requirement in the state
budget so the population, most-
ly the elderly and disabled, could
receive state medical assistance.
"It means this population is
able to have some kind of med-

ical coverage. Once they lost SSI,
they would automatically lose
Medicaid and they would have
no medical coverage whatsoev-
er," Hughey said.
Rep. Nick Ciaramitaro and
Sen. Robert Geake chaired the
committees that restored some
of the benefits to legal immi-
grants.

Protecting benefits
for the most
vulnerable.

Lastly, the MJC fought hard
to reverse deep cuts in adult ed-
ucation spending that were ini-
tiated by Gov. John Engler.
Funding for classes in English As
A Second Language (ESL), es-
sential to immigrants trying to
pass citizenship exams, was pre-
viously capped at 450 hours. It is
now based on proficiency that is
tested periodically.
Hughey acknowledged that
some SSI and Medicaid benefits
were restored in the latest fed-
eral budget package. But on the
state level, a few dozen refugees
who have been in the country for
over seven years — the limit for
receiving SSI benefits — and who
were not 65 by last August — the

cutoff for receiving medical as-
sistance — won't fall through the
cracks.
The federal budget restored
the benefits to older legal immi-
grants, including refugees and
asylees, who were receiving them
as of last August or who became
disabled after August 1996.
"It wasn't a waste of time. We
did it because we were not confi-
dent the federal government
would make the fixes necessary.
Fortunately, they did. It was a
fight," Hughey said. ❑

See related story, page 27

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