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17 Immigr. & Nat'lity L. Rev. 457 (1995-1996)
Public Benefits and Immigration: The Intersection of Immigration Status, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class

handle is hein.journals/inlr17 and id is 465 raw text is: PUBLIC BENEFITS AND IMMIGRATION: THE INTERSECTION
OF IMMIGRATION STATUS, ETHNICITY,
GENDER, AND CLASS
Kevin R. Johnson-
INTRODUCTION ................................................ 458
I.  MENACES TO SOCIETY: PUBLIC CHARGES, WELFARE MOTHERS,
AND CRIMINAL ALIENS ....................................... 467
A. Immigrants and Public Benefits: A History of Fear ............... 467
B. The Ineligibility of Undocumented Persons for Most Major
Federal Public Assistance Programs .........................        476
C. Outlaw Aliens: Benefit Recipients and Criminals .............      479
D. Immigration Benefit Politics in the 1990s .....................      482
1.  Symbolism  . ........................................           484
2. Community Boundaries ...............................             485
3. State-Federal Tensions ................................          487
E.  Summary   .. ............................................           489
II. THE INTERSECTION OF IMMIGRATION STATUS,
ETHNICITY, GENDER, AND CLASS ................................ 489
A. The Disadvantages of Immigration Status .....................        492
* Professor of Law, University of California at Davis. A.B. 1980, University of California,
Berkeley; J.D. 1983, HarvardUniversity. This Article was prepared for the Immigration and Public
Benefits Symposium held at UCLA School of Law on February 25, 1994. Thanks to the UCLA
Law Review and Lynn Alvarez for organizing the symposium and inviting me to participate. I also
appreciate the assistance and hospitality of Alex Hoehn-Saric, Patrick Brown, and the other
members of the UCLA Law Review who participated in the Symposium. In completing this article,
I benefitted immensely from assorted discussions with Symposium participants and the various paper
presentations. Lynn Alvarez, Vik Amar, Carla McKenzie, Peter Margulies, Manuel Moreno-Evans,
and Michael Scaperlanda offered helpful comments on a draft of the article.
This paper was presented in preliminary form at a colloquium sponsored by the Chicano-Latino
Policy Project in November 1994 at the University of California at Berkeley. Ofelia Cuevas,
Rachel Moran, and Ruth Patino of the Project graciously offered me this forum. The questions,
comments, and encouragement of the audience, especially the enthusiasm of the students, was
invigorating.
Minty Siu Chung, a U.C. Davis law student with an inspiring commitment to immigrants'
rights, provided invaluable research assistance and expertise that made completion of this paper
possible and prevented me from making innumerable errors. Nipa Rahim's excellent research on
European immigration issues, as well as her help on projects large and small over the last few years,
are deeply appreciated. E. Dion Costa and Aleem Ullah Kahn Raja also provided much-appreciated
research assistance. Financial and other support provided by the U.C. Davis School of Law, the
U.C. Davis Academic Senate, and the U.C. Berkeley Center for German and European Studies is
greatly appreciated.
Originally published in 42 UCLA L. Rev. 1509. Copyright © 1995, The Regents of the University of
California. All Rights Reserved.

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