For kids!
The state of Kansas has found a way to deny children who are American citizens nutritional assistance they would be eligible for—if only their parents weren't undocumented immigrants.
While undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, many have children who were born in the U.S. and are, as citizens, eligible for aid. Or they were until Kansas tinkered with how household income is calculated.
Here's how the change works: Until last fall, Kansas would look at the household income of a family made up of a mixture of citizens and non-citizens, and prorate the income to the number of citizens—and remember, we're talking about dependent children here. So for one family the Kansas City Star's Laura Bauer talked to, the two U.S. citizens in a family of five were counted as receiving two-fifths of the total household income of $1,600 a month. That meant they were counted as having $640 a month in income and were eligible for $280 a month in food stamps. Now, though, those two children, aged eight and three, are counted as earning their family's entire $1,600, and $1,600 a month is too high an income for two people to qualify for benefits.
How's that for creativity in the service of screwing immigrant families?
The family described above applied for benefits only after the children's mother was laid off; when the children's father worked weekends for some months, he reported the extra income and his daughters' benefits were cut. Then, just as his weekend work and his daughters would have qualified for food stamps again, Kansas made this change going after the children of immigrants:
He now puts $50 a week aside for food to feed his family. When that’s not enough, he borrows from the rent money and the cash put aside for utilities.
His eyes fill with tears when he talks about his struggle to provide for his family.
“My family doesn’t know what I’m doing,” he said. “I try to eat at work (where his boss often provides meals and snacks) so I don’t take food away from my children at home. … The bills are coming in. Now I am getting letters on what they are going to cut off. I know every month it’s going to be worse.
“But I ask myself, ‘What is better, my kids having food or paying the bills?’”
Way to go, Kansas.