Undoing Clinton’s Sabotage of Restrictions on Immigrant Welfare Use
Here’s what President Trump can do
By George Fishman on September 16, 2025
Summary
The historic Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was designed to “strengthen[] the principle that immigrants come to America to work, not to collect welfare benefits”. It provided that while lawful permanent residents and other “qualified aliens” are eligible for federal welfare programs (“federal means-tested public benefit”), eligibility generally begins only after five years in the U.S. — “to send a clear signal that immigrants are expected to … not become dependent on public welfare benefits prior to obtaining citizenship”. And PRWORA and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 provided that when U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents sponsor relatives for green cards, the sponsored aliens are inadmissible unless the sponsors execute affidavits of support legally enforceable by any entity that provides any “means-tested public benefit”.
Because these laws did not define “means-tested public benefit”/federal means-tested public benefit”, the Clinton administration largely neutered their protections for American taxpayers in the immigration system — essentially limiting the applicability of the five-year waiting period and the affidavit of support to only a few welfare programs.
PRWORA had contained common-sense definitions — benefits determined on the basis of income, resources, or financial need are “means-tested”. But the definitions were struck on the Senate floor on a purely procedural basis. They applied to welfare programs funded on both a “mandatory” and a “discretionary” basis, the former doled out regardless of how much money Congress has appropriated, the latter only until appropriated funds have been exhausted. On the Senate floor, a senator raised a successful “Byrd rule” point of order, eventually explaining that since PRWORA was budget reconciliation legislation, the definitions violated the rule because discretionary programs were outside the Finance Committee’s jurisdiction and had a “merely incidental” impact on the budget. Yet, the Senate and House conference report — signed by the senator who raised the point of order — subsequently clearly stated that “It is the intent of conferees that this definition be presumed to be in place.”
Democratic constituencies were angered by President Clinton’s signing of PRWORA into law. Clinton wrote in his signing statement that he had “strong objections to certain provisions, which I am determined to correct”, including that the Act “would deny Federal assistance to legal immigrants”.
The Clinton administration then decided that only “mandatory” means-tested benefits programs would be covered by the waiting period and affidavit of support provisions. This despite the fact that the plain meaning of the terms demand definitions that do not differentiate between mandatory and discretionary programs. And even were the definitions still found to be ambiguous, then their “best reading”, consistent with the definitive evidence of legislative intent, demands such definitions.
Over the past quarter century, no succeeding administration has revisited the Clinton administration’s legerdemain. The almost three-decade-long reign of the Clinton administration’s travesty of statutory interpretation needs to come to an end. The promise to the American taxpayer embodied in PRWORA and IIRIRA needs to be fulfilled.
In President Trump’s first term, the White House apparently drafted an executive order directing DHS to define “means-tested public benefit” for purposes of the affidavit of support in a manner including both mandatory and discretionary welfare programs. I would urge that President Trump consider now issuing such an order for purposes of both the waiting period and the affidavit of support.
Current Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan during her stint in the Clinton White House played a major role in developing the administration’s stance. If the Supreme Court is ever called on to decide the meaning of “means-tested public benefit” and “federal means-tested public benefit”, Justice Kagan will need to recuse herself.
https://cis.org/Report/Undoing-Clintons-Sabotage-Restrictions-Immigrant-Welfare-Use
