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Advocates: Rule Providing Welfare to Asylum Seekers Written Too Narrowly

Last year, Maine passed a law designed to ensure that Maine residents who are seeking asylum in the U.S. have access to state welfare benefits. The LePage administration opposed the measure, and has now implemented the law in a way that some advocacy groups say misses the mark, unfairly excluding dozens of immigrants.

Earlier this year in Freeport, at one in his series of town meetings, LePage tried to make a case against one group of immigrants.

“Asylum seekers, I think the biggest problem in our state and I’ll explain that if you would like,” LePage said.

He was not well received at that particular event, and the Legislature hasn’t bought in either. Last year, lawmakers passed a bill designed to allow asylum seekers to receive state welfare benefits, known as general assistance, for food and housing for up to 24 months.

After haggling with the Maine Supreme Court over whether or not he had missed his chance to veto the bill, LePage backed off of his effort to defeat the legislation. But he continues to maintain that it’s wrong to hand out benefits to those who are legally present in the state, but have not — at least in his opinion — been thoroughly vetted.

The state Department of Health and Human Services has written new rules to implement the law and Commissioner Mary Mayhew says she has met the letter of the law.

“So we have defined in the rule to require that an individual demonstrate through documentation that they are in fact lawfully pursuing immigration relief through the Unites States Citizenship and Immigration Services,” Mayhew says.

However, advocates for the poor and Democrats such as Rep. Drew Gattine, a Westbrook Democrat, say the new rules are nowhere close to meeting the intent of the law passed last year.

“The department is now figuring out that they’re not going to get everything they want through the legislative process, so now they’re using their executive rule-making authority to really go counter to what I think was clearly intended when the Legislature passed this bill last year,” he says.

Gattine says DHHS officials wrote a narrow rule that only applies to immigrants who are lawfully present in Maine and who have formally applied for asylum through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The rule provides no benefits for those who have not yet completed an asylum application and does nothing for immigrants who are seeking asylum through the courts.

Robyn Merrill, executive director of Maine Equal Justice Partners, an advocacy group for the poor, says that’s not what the Legislature envisioned.

“We’re certainly going to be considering challenging the rule in the courts,” she says.

Merrill says that that while DHHS modified the proposed rule in response to suggestions made by the attorney general, the final rule still excludes those who are taking lawful steps to prepare an application for asylum. She estimates there could be dozens of people who are now left in a state of welfare limbo.

“The intent was certainly to provide kind of a bridge for people so they’re able to get some support, temporarily while they’re waiting for work authorization while they’re moving through the complicated application process,” Merrill says. “Unfortunately the final rule kind of leaves this gap for people where once their visas expire, while they’re still within the permissible time frame of one year — they’re preparing to take steps to lawfully apply for asylum — they wouldn’t be eligible until they’ve actually submitted their application.”

The DHHS rule is also opposed by another Maine group, the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project.