Fear has become epidemic among Bay Area immigrants. It’s easy to see why.
If allowed to stand unchallenged, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (welfare reform) will dramatically affect countless legal immigrants from around the world.
Those include thousands of Jewish emigres from the former Soviet Union, and even a handful of Holocaust survivors who came here after the war but for one reason or another never took their citizenship exam.
To deny legal immigrants who are not yet citizens such vital government benefits as Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medi-Cal and food stamps is callous — and wrong.
They came to this country by following the rules. They should not be treated as pariahs.
The newly passed legislation does that, however. It singles out an entire class of people to bear the burden of billions of dollars that the bill is expected to save the federal government.
Of course, the legislation could end up being amended.
President Clinton has declared his opposition to those clauses affecting legal immigrants. What’s more, legal experts expect a challenge to those sections based on the equal protection clause of the federal Constitution, which protects the equal rights of all persons.
There are no guarantees, however, and that is why a number of Jewish agencies have mounted efforts to naturalize as many legal immigrants as possible — as quickly as possible.
Some of those immigrants will pass the test and become citizens. Others, because they are frail and elderly and may have trouble learning English or absorbing complex historical details, will not.
The rug will be pulled out from under them, and many are deeply afraid.
Demands on the Jewish community to make up losses to those people — as well as others affected by the legislation — will be great. We need to brace for that reality.