US Welfare Can Be Controlled Using Current Immigration Laws and Welfare Work/Training Programs

America's welfare system is a serious cost burden at federal and state levels. It discourages recipients from becoming self-sufficient. It is also a magnet for poor immigrants with little education or skills needed to compete in the US job market. Are there solutions? ~~~~~ The first thing America can do is use its current immigration laws, which say that persons likely to become a "public charge," -- dependent on public assistance -- are ineligible for an immigrant visa. Refugees, asylum seekers, and amnestied illegal aliens are exempt from the "public charge" requirements because Congress long ago decided that America will serve as the sponsors for these immigrants and pay for their support. All other immigrants must pass a public charge test and have a US sponsor willing to pledge their income to support them. Before a potential immigrant receives an immigration visa, American consular officers are supposed to evaluate whether he or she is likely to become a public charge, and, if so, to deny the visa. The Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 set the new standard for evaluation : the sponsor of the applicant must have an annual income of at least 125% of the federally designated poverty level, but the problem with this is that the sponsor's income level, only 25% higher than the poverty level, is so low that it does not prevent immigrants from needing welfare -- it almost guarantees it. While immigrants who receive welfare can be deported for violating their admission conditions -- that is if they become a "public charge" -- this provision is rarely enforced. Only twelve people have been deported under this provision since 1980. If America and Congress are serious about reducing poverty in the US, immigration laws must be revised and returned to the realistic practice of excluding aliens who are likely to become public charges and of deporting those who do. In addition, halting the surge of illegal immigrants would not only make US borders mean something, it would reduce welfare costs. ~~~~~ Maine and several other states are now tying welfare access to programs to get recipients off welfare. When the food stamp program was introduced nationally in the 1970s, just one in 50 Americans participated. Today, the Congressional Budget Office says one in seven Americans receives food stamps, at a total cost of more than $6 billion per month. Maine recently decided to take action to help move people off welfare into self-sustaining jobs. Maine's Republican Governor Paul LePage and Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew saw the need to change welfare policies that trap citizens in long-term government-dependent poverty into policies that reduce welfare dependency and reward work. When LePage took office in 2011, one in three people living in Maine was receiving some sort of welfare. So, in October 2014, Maine started requiring some 16,000 able-bodied childless adults to work, train, or volunteer at least part-time in order to continue receiving food stamps. Those who refused would be taken off Maine’s welfare rolls after three months. These reforms allowed Maine to quickly move thousands of adults off government dependency. By January 2015, the number of able-bodied adults on food stamps had dropped to 4,500 and has continued to decline. Maine ranked first in the nation in 2014 for its decline in food-stamp dependency, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Today, only 1,500 able-bodied childless adults rely on food stamps in Maine -- a huge improvement. ~~~~~ Dear readers, the last major effort to apply work requirements to welfare receipt was President Reagan's experimental programs to break the federal government grip on welfare and return control to the states, where it had been before President Johnson's federal Great Society programs. House Speaker Paul Ryan has ready a draft welfare reform bill similar in spirit to the Reagan initiatives. With a Republican Congress and President, 2017 can be the year when America finally begins to win the war on poverty.