The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Refugee Benefits -- Who's Responsible?

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REFUGEE [through interpreter]: I had 14 children. Eleven of them and my husband were killed during the war. They were running and hiding, and there was no medicine. There were no doctors. Some of them got chicken pox, and so many of my children died. I moved here with two of my sons, and now I am worried about the cutoff in public assistance.

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ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. This week several thousand refugees were dropped from a federal government cash support program. Like thousands before them this summer, they suddenly had to find their own way to pay for food, housing and medical care. Most of them are Haitian, Cuban or Indochinese, some who arrived as "boat people," some brought to this country with U.S. government assistance. Two years ago, Congress provided special assistance for such refugees for up to 36 months. This spring, the Reagan administration cut that time period to 18 months. Refugees who had been here that long have stopped receiving checks in states that do not operate their own general welfare programs. By the end of next year, a total of 200,000 refugees will have been dropped. Tonight, with a first-hand look at refugee families in the Northwest, what does the loss of government support mean, and whose responsibility is it to care for these people? Jim Lehrer is off tonight; Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in Washington. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, by cutting the eligibility period in half, the Reagan administration hopes to save over $20 million. Under the plan, 64,000 Cuban and Haitian refugees now receiving benefits will be dropped from the welfare rolls by October of next year. In addition, 142,000 Indochinese will also lose their benefits in the same period. The aid cutoff affects three categories -- childless couples, single individuals and two-parent families. Robin?

MacNEIL: Although the administration cuts apply to many nationalities of refugees, we decided to concentrate on one group who, unlike the Haitians and Cubans, have caused relatively little controversy. Some 46,000 Indochinese refugees live in Washington and Oregon. So far, 16,000 have lost their benefits. Independent producer-cameraman Philip Garvin filmed this report on the large Laotian population in Washington state.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Since the Communist takeover of their countries in 1975, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees have sought resettlement in the United States. For many their first port of entry, Seattle, has become their home. About 700 of these refugees live in this one housing project on the southern outskirts of the city. We spoke with three families who came from the Hmong section of Laos. Since the Lor Pung family has been here 26 months, their aid stopped as soon as the Reagan administration announced the 18-month cutoff.

Mr. LOR PUNG [through interpreter]: I used to be a farmer, and I came to America because there was a war with the Communists. When we lost we could not stay with the Communists.We came here thinking that the government would help us with 36 months of assistance. But now there is a cut, and I can't find a job because I have no skills.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Aid to the Hung Cha Toa family has also been cut off.

Mr. HUNG CHA TOA [through interpreter]: I came here because if I stayed I would have been killed by the Communists. The problem now is that I have no money to pay for rent or buy food, and no medical coupon or assistance for my family to go to the clinic.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: For the nine-member Tao Tai family the aid cutoff is just another crisis in a series they've endured.

Mrs. TAO TAI [through interpreter]: I had 14 children. Eleven of them and my husband were killed during the war. They were running and hiding, and there was no medicine. There were no doctors. Some of them got chicken pox, and so many of my children died.I moved here with two of my sons, and now I am worried about the cutoff in public assistance.

BOB JOHNSON, regional director of the International Rescue Committee: Well, we brought them over. We had a refugee program with quotas and limits, and we went to the camps; we asked people to sign up for the U.S. program. We encouraged them, in many cases, to go even though they were reluctant to leave. And we brought them to this country expecting a lot of things.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Bob Johnson is the regional director of the International Rescue Committee, a non-profit voluntary agency involved in resettling refugees.

Mr. JOHNSON: You know, to my knowledge, most refugees, particularly those that I worked with in Thailand, were aware of a 36-month program.

REPORTER: So they came over thinking they could get 36 months and now they're getting 18; do they --

Mr. JOHNSON: I think a lot of them really just had a very hard time believing that the Americans would change their minds that way, that they really felt that they had been promised something and it had been taken away from them.

Mr. HUNG CHA TOA [through interpreter]: I have a question for you. Can the government at least help me pay the rent? If the government says no, that they cannot pay the rent, and they cannot help anything else, are the needy people going to die? The people will die without food. What does the government think about that? If we have no money to pay rent, and the manager of this apartment says that we must get out, we'll have no place to live.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Typically, the refugees live six to nine people in a one- or two-bedroom apartment. This is the Lor Pung family's bedroom. The cutbacks have forced some families to share apartments. But without aid, there is no hope that they can stay even here. But the Lor Pung family has a more pressing concern than rent. The younger Mrs. Lor Pung is pregnant, and the administration's aid cutoff includes medical benefits as well.

Mr. LOR PUNG [through interpreter]: I have no medical coupons, and so I can't take her to the hospital because I can't afford the fee. So the only thing I can do is for my wife to deliver the baby at home without the doctor.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Although many of the refugees adopted Western religions while in Indochina, only a tiny percentage speak or understand English. They are in desperate need of English classes, but along with the aid cutoff there has been a reduction in English lessons from 1,000 hours to about 500.

Mr. TAO TAI [through interpreter]: The government has given us only a short time to learn English, and now only 500 hours of lessons per person. So we can't find a job with a company because when they give us a job application and tell us to fill it out by ourselves, we cannot answer any of the questions.

Mr. JOHNSON: It is very frustrating. That's why I think we're going to see more and more of these frustration-type problems where, you know, everything is up against the wall for them, and they just don't know which way to jump.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: To make matters worse, many of the newest refugees are farmers from the remote hill country of Laos.They are illiterate in their native language so learning a new one is extremely difficult in just 500 hours. But they have turned their agricultural background to advantage in one case: they convinced the housing project manager to let them cultivate the small strip of land beside the building.They now raise vegetables where only weeds had grown.

REFUGEE [through interpreter]: During my life I never asked for food or other help, but when I came here I had no choice. The Americans and the refugees are both people, but Americans have food and we don't, so we have to ask for it. It's difficult for me to look at the Americans in the face.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: But despite their resourcefulness, the refugees' experience is stressful, and the latest aid cutoff is one more crisis. Hang Sao is the leader of the Hmong people here.

HANG SAO: And I am thinking we are going to see many people, they'll become mental health -- very severe. And they will become suicidal, ideation suicidal, often, and also, they are walking in outside, thinking and talking and sometime like they're crazy.

Mr. JOHNSON: In the first month of the cutoff -- June -- we saw an increase in the number of suicides from an average in the previous months of one per month to seven in the month of June. And these were suicide attempts, but it's still a statistic that's very alarming for the first month.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: The refugees are hard workers, and say they would much prefer jobs to welfare. But with high unemployment, jobs are very hard to find for those who speak so little English. So families like the Tao Tai are seeking alternatives. They've heard that the welfare office has some programs that can provide short-term aid. Thomas Haynes is the financial officer for the south Seattle office.

THOMAS HAYNES, welfare officer: There are some other programs that are available depending upon the household composition. For instance, if it's a single mother with some children, they would be eligible for AFCD benefits. They might be eligible also for emergency assistance money, or the 'K' program.

REPORTER: That's only good for two months?

Mr. HAYNES: That's only good for two months; that's correct. They might also be eligible for -- if there is a disability on the part of either the mother or the father, they might qualify, or a single person might qualify for incapacity.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: The Tao Tai family hopes to take advantage of the disability assistance program. But if a family is considering the AFDC alternative, there can be some devastating effects.

Mr. JOHNSON: They've heard that if the husband is gone in the family that the family may be able to qualify for continued assistance, so in some cases the husband has said that he would kill himself in order to allow the family to continue on assistance. Now, that's frustrating. You know, we've directly created that problem for him to solve.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: The Hung Cha Toa and the Lor Pung families are considering still another alternative. They have heard that some states, like California, have better assistance programs.

Mr. HUNG CHA TOA [through interpreter]: I have decided to move to California because they have medical assistance and they are willing to help my family.

Mr. LOR PUNG [through interpreter]: I plan to move if I have no money to pay rent, and if I still have no job. I'll move to a state that has public assistance.

MacNEIL [voice-over]: The final irony is this piece of paper. This is an invoice sent to the Tao Tai family asking for repayment of a loan they received from the U.S. government for traveling expenses to this country.

Mr. JOHNSON: This is the money that was used to transport them, to fly them to the United States. And the refugees signed a promisory note in the refugee camp or at the processing center saying that they would repay the bill. And the bill doesn't become due until after they've been here for a period of time. So, again, many of them are starting to get these bills right now and bringing them into the office and saying, you know, "What can I do? I don't have any money. How can I repay this?"

MacNEIL [voice-over]: There is an underlying paradox to this story. Although the Reagan administration has ordered a cutback in aid, it continues to provide active assistance in bringing more refugees to the United States from Indochina.

Mr. JOHNSON: It makes no sense. I mean, we are continuing to have a refugee program, to take refugees from Southeast Asia. We continue to interview them in the camps and bring them to the United States, but we don't continue to support them 100% of what we used to, and so the two policies are coming into a direct conflict. It's kind of, you know, the two brick walls hitting each other, and the refugee is caught between it.

HUNTER-GAULT: For some reaction now from the Reagan administration, we have the director of refugee resettlement for the Department of Health and Human Services. He is Philip Hawks. Mr. Hawks, why did the Reagan administration decide to cut the benefits to 18 months? I'm sorry, after 18 months?

PHILIP HAWKS: Well, the decision to alter the benefits from 36 to 18 months was actually made in about November of 1980, before the Reagan administration took office, and it was made at that point because there was indication that the 36-month benefit package that had been made part of the Refugee Act of 1980 was in fact acting to encourage refugees to sign up for welfare benefits rather than to go to work. And, in fact, in the ensuing period of some two years, the dependency rate of refugees rose from something less than 40% to something near 70%, and 80% and even 85% in some states. And I think we have to look at this in a worldwide context. In other nations which have taken large numbers of Indochinese refugees, and have 12 months of refugee benefits or 18 months of refugee benefits, the unemployment level of their refugee population matches that of the general population after that 12-month period or after the 18-month period. Here we have 36 months -- or had 36 months -- and I think what that did is it acted to wean people onto a program that could be seen as a pretty good deal. We have evidence that people were going to college; people were enrolled in community colleges. Such people certainly could not be characterized as being deficient in English and attending a community college. They were job-ready, but Indochinese are very highly motivated toward education. And with one hand the government was saying, "Here is a system of support," and so they used it. They took advantage of it.

HUNTER-GAULT: Of course it's not just the Indochinese that this new policy affects. It affects the Haitians and the Cubans and others. Do you have evidence that these groups in general would be able to become self-sufficient after they've been terminated from the aid?

Mr. HAWKS: Well, again, I think, for instance, Haitians do not impact welfare programs to nearly the high degree that Cubans or Indochinese do. They tend to be more self-sufficient. They tend to go to work more rapidly. It is true that Florida has a large number of unemployed Cubans as a result of the Mariel boat lift, but the other side of that is that illegal Cubans in Florida are working, and basically we have a situation where those that were given 36 months of benefits by the federal government are taking advantage of those benefits.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, do you think that cases like the four we saw on the program just then are fairly typical of the problem, or exceptions to the rule, or, I mean, how widespread is that kind of desperation?

Mr. HAWKS: There is certainly some desperation out there, but I don't really think that we just saw four typical cases. The 36-month rule -- let's go back just a minute. The 36-month rule that offered refugees 36 months of special assistance only took effect a year ago April. At that time, it was predicted that thousands of refugees that were cut off of refugee cash assistance would come into local welfare offices, general assistance offices, and sign up. Some counties in California, for instance, predicted that 40% of their caseload would switch over to county-funded general assistance programs. And, as a matter of fact, some two to three percent actually came in. The rest of those people went to work. There was a program available for them; they chose not to take advantage of it. They went to work. I think what we're seeing right now is an immediate reaction to the same kind of situation. We will be doing a national survey in August to determine what the actual dependency rate is in the population at this time. But again, I expect that it will be much better than is being predicted.

HUNTER-GAULT: In a word, then, you don't feel that the administration has broken its promise to these refugees?

Mr. HAWKS: Only if you see the promise as a guarantee that they were not required to look for work or to become self-sufficient for three years, and it was never meant that way. It was, "if everything else fails, here's a program to keep you from starving, to pay your rent, to give you medical care." But it was the most generous in the world.

HUNTER-GAULT: So, in a word, no. The administration has not broken its promise?

Mr. HAWKS: No. That's right.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: A lot of state officials have criticized the 18-month cutoff, particularly in Florida. That state has one of the largest concentrations of refugees and no general welfare fund to pick up the slack when the refugees are dropped by Washington. Linda Berkowitz is the refugee coordinator for south Florida. She joins us tonight in Tallahassee. Ms. Berkowitz, first of all, did you understand that as far back as November, 1980, the decision was made to cut the 36 months to 18 months?

LINDA BERKOWTIZE: As far as I know, the decision to cut the assistance to 18 months was not made until the spring of 1982.

MacNEIL: What is your response to the administration -- you've just heard Mr. Hawks say he doesn't feel that the administration has broken faith with these refugees, and you heard his interpretation. What is your response to that?

Ms. BERKOWITZ: I think it's real unfortunate. I think that not only has the administration broken the federal government's commitment to refugees, but it has also broken its commitment to the states, which in the end are going to have to absorb the financial burden of services to these individuals.

MacNEIL: Now, what's happened -- I beg your pardon, go ahead.

Ms. BERKOWITZ: I was just going to say, Robert, that these individuals -- whether or not anybody agrees that they need assistance or don't need assistance -- do in fact need it. Somebody has to pick up the cost. The state of Florida has been saying immigration is a federal responsibility; the financial burden also is a federal responsibility.

MacNEIL: What's happened to the refugees in your state whose 18 months have passed and are now dropped from the federal assistance? What's been happening to them?

Ms. BERKOWITZ: They're having a very hard time. We've had over 2,000 of the most -- probably the most highly motivated Mariel Cubans apply for a special employment and training program that we've set up. These are people who, after almost two years in the country, still speak no English for the most part; at least 90% of them have no English capability whatsoever. The small percentage that are able to speak some English, their levels of proficiency are so low that not only can they not keep a job, but they cannot even get a job. Haitians are lining up for a $20 bag of groceries to sustain them.

MacNEIL: What do you say to the administration's argument that many of these refugees were simply taking advantage of the 36-month period and not doing anything about getting a job, even some of them going to college?

Ms. BERKOWITZ: First of all, the Cuban and Haitian entrants did not enter the country with a promise of welfare benefits. They entered the country, and they did not begin to receive welfare benefits until January, 1981, six months after they entered the country. Florida has one of the lowest dependency rates in the country, and I think one of the factors that Mr. Hawks neglected to mention was that there is a direct correlation between high dependency rates and those states that give the highest level of benefits. And those are some of the very states that are being able to continue providing assistance for refugees and entrants for a full 36 months.

MacNEIL: Didn't Florida get very recently from the federal government an additional $31 million in emergency refugee aid? Isn't that going to help you in this situation?

Ms. BERKOWITZ: That's going to help some, but that $31 million in entrant-impact aid will not replace the $60 million that these individuals would have generated in cash and medical benefits over the course of the same year.

MacNEIL: Do you think 18 months is a reasonable time for the averagely motivated immigrant or refugee -- if there is such a thing -- to get himself on his own feet?

Ms. BERKOWITZ: Not the ones we've seen, not the people who are coming in with mental health problems and physical problems because of the totally inadequate screening; not for those coming in who have little or no language proficiency in their native language, let alone English; those who are coming in with very low skill levels; those who are coming in with very low educational levels. No, I certainly don't. And I have yet to see any evidence presented by the office of refugee resettlement that documents that 18 months is sufficient.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: What's your evidence, Mr. Hawks?

Mr. HAWKS: What is our evidence that 18 months is sufficient? Well, it certainly was working in other countries that are taking large numbers of refugees. Why it should be sufficient in Canada, for instance, where 12 months of refugee assistance is supplied, where the unemployment rate is about the same as ours nationally, and where, after 12 months, their refugees are at about the same level of unemployment as their general assistance -- pardon me, as their general population.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what would you suggest to somebody like Ms. Berkowitz, who doesn't seem to think that that is enough? I mean, what are they doing that she's not doing that she could be doing?

Mr. HAWKS: I don't really know what Ms. Berkowitz could do that would improve the program. I think that we have to look at the Florida program, however, a little more broadly than it has just been characterized. The federal government has given Florida $330 million in the last two years. Of that, the $31 million that we just gave in July was -- there are about 30,000 Cuban entrants in Florida which were cut off of the assistance as a result of our 18-month policy, and the Florida award to those people averaged a little over $100 each. So $30 million is something equal to 10 months of assistance as it would be given in Florida, and, frankly, the program of welfare was not working to put people to work. If it was, we wouldn't have that population still on welfare. We thought that giving Florida a $30-million cash award with the option to use that for training programs that would prepare people for going to work would be a more efficient use of the money than to continue to dole it out at $100 a month.

HUNTER-GAULT: What about that, Ms. Berkowitz?

Ms. BERKOWITZ: I think it's real important that everybody clearly understand that one out of every 18 Dade Countians today came in during the Haitian and Cuban influx of 1980. Most of those people are working. Most of those people are self-sufficient. We are talking about those people who because of any number of handicaps that they brought with them into this country are still not able to be self-sufficient after 18 months. Somebody is going to have to deliver services to those people. The state of Florida has been saying, "It is not our responsibility. We did not allow them to enter. We did not allow them [audio break] we didn't -- "

HUNTER-GAULT: I think I get the drift of your point because you made the charge earlier. What do you say to that, Mr. Hawks, that immigration is a federal responsibility? You make the decisions about who gets to stay and who has to leave, and therefore, as she said, the financial burden should be the federal government's responsibility.

Mr. HAWKS: Well, the immigration is a federal responsibility; however, we're a nation of immigrants. We all came here from somewhere else, and most of us or our ancestors came at a time when there were none of these programs. There was no welfare, no Medicaid, no English training classes at government expense, and people went to work. They got jobs, they persevered, and they peopled the country. We have a situation, I think, very unfortunate, that created a welfare dependency in this latest wave of immigrants, the ones we call refugees or entrants, depending on where they're from.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Ms. Berkowitz says that very few of them speak English, and certainly not enough to enable them to function in a job, or even to apply for a job.

Mr. HAWKS: Well, we have supplied the state of Florida with $31 million, which comes out at about $1,000 apiece for those 30,000 people. I would think that that would go a long way toward building some English and employment skills in that population.

HUNTER-GAULT: What about that argument that Mr. Hawks just advanced, Ms. Berkowitz?

Ms. BERKOWITZ: If Mr. Hawks is correct in his argument that 18 months ought to be sufficient, why is the federal government continuing to provide full federal support for refugees in states with general assistance programs for 36 months? Why not terminate it in those states as well?

HUNTER-GAULT: What about that?

Mr. HAWKS: Well, those states have a population that, because they are here legally, would be able to sign up for general assistance and get that assistance on the same basis as a citizen would receive it, regardless of whether the federal government reimburses or not. Since the federal government is committed to cover state costs for 36 months, we thought that it was fair to reimburse those costs over which we did not have direct control.

HUNTER-GAULT: Let me just ask you very quickly in the last few seconds we have here, can this 18-month cutoff be seen as a signal to deter other refugees from coming here, and do you think it will?

Mr. HAWKS: No, but it will bring them with the expectations that they're expected to get the skills they need as quickly as possible and go to work.

HUNTER-GAULT: In a word, do you think it will deter them, Ms. Berkowitz?

Ms. BERKOWITZ: No, I do not.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think the situation is going to improve in any way?

Ms. BERKOWITZ: What I think is that --

HUNTER-GAULT: Very quickly, we have to end it.

Ms. BERKOWITZ: -- states and local communities are going to have to pick up the burden.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, we have to leave it there. I'm sorry. Robin?

MacNEIL: Ms. Berkowitz, thank you very much for joining us in Tallahassee.

Ms. BERKOWITZ: You're welcome.

MacNEIL: Mr. Hawks, in Washington. Good night, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We will be back on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.