这个让我再想想

很久没写space了，真的很忙，不是叫苦

到今晚，这一刻为止，我认为这学期最难的一门课在我写完这篇实在有些恶心但还算有point的文章后结束，虽然没有ANTC的文章那么长，但是实在是集结我这个学期对于这门social service的所有知识的一个小小的总结和运用，实在是很难的一门，内容听起来和题目远远无关，学的都是美国福利的历史，福利机构的营运，福利制度的修改和影响， 其中的苦我想只有我自己明白，但是学到的也是很多，只是说不出来。

转眼这个学期也到头了，昨晚还梦见回深圳搭公车呢，这么这么快呢，前天去Paul家还想起年初的时候在他家借宿的那几天，hannah把底裤套在自己头上的样子， 还有那时候自己头发刚剪的样子，现在已经是我在potsdam的第三个冬天了，真的很快。也是越忙越快，看看下学期的课表，想着下学期应该过的更快。

人总是要为自己所作的付出代价的，暑假的时候（过得太快，总感觉夏天刚走）我还振振有词教训某个正在为自己的骄傲付出代价的朋友，其实我也是的，我常常在想人要吃多少次亏才能学聪明呢，真的不知道。 很多时候觉得，如果当时我怎样怎样，那么今天我就可以怎样怎样，可以不必怎样怎样，但是历史无法被修改， 想着神还是在我身上做了工的，因为没有一次次失败，我也长不起来。

是的，懊悔让人长大。

总是要等到写完了paper，重新读的时候发现前后不搭，后面写的总是好一些，意思也已经走样，就只好修改修改再修改， ANTC的文章是这样，这篇也是，题目从移民法如何影响移民的福利缩小到TANF如何影响移民福利，一开始所找得到资料和后面的相比实在是很有指向性的缺陷。 所以开始的时候写的很多关于移民法的东西被移除，文章也看起来短了很多，我也不想修改什么语法了，我很困，那就这样吧

我把爸爸妈妈的相片放在米哥送给我的相框里面，深圳看起来永远是夏天。

室友的鼾声渐起，她就要毕业了，虽然我也很想一个人住，但是我是真的挺喜欢这个美国女孩的，今天她用紫色塑料桌布给我们这个永远照不到阳光的房间做了个窗帘，我想我明天可以睡久一点。

Immigrants in the U.S. are impact by two policies, one is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the new welfare reform program for families, which replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) since 1996, and the other one is the Immigration Law of United State, which has been established since 1776. This study is focus on immigrants under this new welfare program, TANF, and how they response to it.

TANF changed welfare in America, for this new welfare reshaped, or “ended welfare as we know it”. According to the act, entitlement grant had been changed to block grant ( The TANF program is a $16.5 billion block grant program to provide temporary assistance to those in need and to help move recipients to work. ) and five year is the lifetime limit of benefit. In 2000, 10% TANF recipients are non-citizens, while the total number of families on welfare decreased by 60%, non-citizen household family stayed in the same percentage (Tumlin, Zimmerman). From 1996 to 2001 during the time TANF replace AFDC, 6 million Americans left the welfare rolls. TANF restricted work requirement and set a lifetime limit for people who on the roll, but statistics shows that 40% of woman who exit welfare through earned income remain poor (D. R. Meyer, M. Cancian). Welfare recipients of TANF make up 2.3% percent of the U.S. population, which is the lowest rate since 1965, while 75% of people living in poverty in the US are woman and children (welfare and woman).

America herself is a model of globalization of ethnic groups, people from all over the world come and stay. From Alien Act of 1978 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), welfare benefit for immigrates in the US changed over time, some people lose their chances because of those modification while some people benefit from it, but it never stop the immigration stream. People came from different nations, for different reasons, choice this country and willing to stay and seek a better life. The history of immigration in the US is long, because basically everyone in this continental was originally from other countries. The statistics on immigration shows that, every year there are more than 1,000,000 people born in foreign region became American Legal Permanent Resident in American (2005:1,122,257; 2006:1,266,129; 2007: 1,052,415); most of them settled  in New York State(136.739) and California(228,941); 65.5% of the LPRs are immigrated under the admission of Family-sponsored immigration, 15.4% of them are under Employment-based preference admission, and 12.9% of them are refugees and asylees.  (Kelly Jefferys, Randall Monger, 2007). Obviously immigrants are gathered in metropolitan areas, where a labor market for limited English speaker has already formed, this is also related to TANF and I will get into detail later. The newest immigration act is the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, this act passed under the increasing voices of anti-immigrant and immigration control. Compare to former reforms, this act is much stricter, not only illegal immigrants facing inadmissibility, legal immigrants also had a tough time. Even after immigrations get their green card, welfare for them is limited.

To know about immigrations under TANF, we need to know facts about immigrations in poverty. Immigrations in the U.S. are polarized buy their education and income, poverty among immigrants in general is significantly higher than that of natives. In 1999, 11.2% of natives lived in poverty compared to 16.8% of all immigrants, and especially the poverty rate for Mexican immigrants, poverty rate of this group is dramatically higher than that of natives or immigrants in general, in 1999, 25.8 percent of Mexican-born immigrants lived in poverty (Poverty and Income). In particular, more than one in five children in poverty have at least one immigrant parent, also that the poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 18.4%, 57% higher than the 11.7 percent for natives and their children (Current Population Survey, March 2001). Immigrations are not only poor, they also impact labor market of the natives, immigrations from Less Developed Countries care less about wage and they rush into labor markets (Camarota, 2007).

There are three aspects of impacts I found about TANF welfare reform and immigration: Immigration who qualified for receiving TANF is limit; growing immigration but declining use of welfare, both among immigrations and natives; TANF encourage people who on the roll to work and be self-sufficient, but they still have to work on job and language training for immigrations. These problems are not only happened because of TANF, they are old troubles but TANF made them more serious.

     Immigrations who receive TANF benefit is only a small group of people. Under  Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) most legal immigrants entered the U.S. after August 22, 1996 are barred for their first five years period as a qualified alien from receiving any Federal TANF means-tested welfare benefit. Only lawful permanent residents, asylees, refugees, etc, are able to receive TANF benefit in their first five years in the U.S., obviously that is not the majority, in 2004, these eligible qualified alien only make up about 2.1% of the total number of recipients population. Like Alina from Eastern Europe (her case study is in the book Hands to Work) immigrations willing to come to America for a better life, but the real situation in the U.S. is not as good as they thought, but Alina is so lucky, she is one of the minority who received benefit from TANF, even though it was limited but certainly better than nothing. However, there are some exceptions, certain percentage parents who have children born in the U.S., including both legal immigrants who have not satisfied their five-year waiting period, and undocumented aliens, can apply for TANF assistance on behalf of their U.S. citizen children. Because the child is a U.S. citizen, and one purpose of TANF is reduce child poverty (Horn, 2006). 

Immigration in the U.S. is growing. Government statistics show that the number of foreign-born people in the U.S. has doubled from 14.1 million in 1980 to 31.1 million in 2000. On the other hand, immigrants on the TANF rolls are having a harder time getting off TANF because they face significant barriers to employment. But welfare benefit for immigrations still declined since TANF started. Since 1996, the immigrant share of the total population grew from 6.2% to 11%. From 1994 to 2000, native families on TANF roll decreased 35% while noncitizen families on the roll decrease by 51%, and refugee families on the roll decreased even more, that is 76%. The number of families which receiving benefit because of their citizen children has increased (Tumlin, Zimmerman)

One of the reasons why replaced AFDC with TANF is that TANF can force people to work, and when people who able to work refuse to work get off the roll, but for immigration, it is not the case that they refuse to work, but the barriers in front of them keep them away to work. Just like single mothers who want to work but cannot because they need to take care of their children and public services do not offer well child care program. For most of the immigrations, English is not their first language and their English skill is limited,  41% of the noncitizens on TANF in LA are limited English speaker (Tumlin, Zimmerman). Furthermore, immigrations who do not speak English well are more likely to find jobs that do not require speaking English, or even contact with people. Language and vocational training, like affordable child care for single mothers, are important for helping needy families to be independent.

In conclusion, this “end welfare as we know it” reform basically work well on force people to be independent, but I think it ignore some necessary needs in this process. After all I think the problems of immigrations are similar with single mother who struggled with work, benefits and child care, because it is not the case that they refuse to work because of laziness, but because of barriers and dilemmas. TANF is focus on work instead of training and the limited availability of training programs for those who do not speak English have made it even more difficult for limited English speakers to receive language or skills training, and generally reform of  welfare programs is making it harder for recipients to receive training or education, like Alina who need to make a choice between college and work plus benefits. Over all, studies in immigration and TANF reform is giving a good suggestion on modify this reform, in order to really help needy people.

Bibliography

Camarota, S. A. (2007). Immigration’s Impact on American Workers. Center for Immigration Studies.

(March 2001). Current Population Survey. (U.S. Bureau of the Census).

D. R. Meyer, M. Cancian. (n.d.). Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers . Retrieved from University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty : http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/dps/pdfs/dp110196.pdf

Horn, W. F. (2006). Benefits to Immigrants under TANF. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services .

Kelly Jefferys, Randall Monger. (2007). 2007 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. Retrieved from Department of Homeland Security.

Poverty and Income. (n.d.). Retrieved from center for immigration studies: http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/mexico/poverty.html

Tumlin, Zimmerman. Immigrants and TANF: A Look at Immigrant Welfare Recipients in Three Cities. Occasional Paper. Assessing the New Federalism: An Urban Institute Program to Assess Changing Social Policies. Washington DC: Urban Institute.

welfare and woman. In WOW! Facts of Woman and Diversity,2002 (p. 411).