Changes in immigration and welfare laws are having an impact on individuals and families, on the groups, organizations, and service providers that work with them, and on immigrant communities. The laws were passed to increase the penalties for undocumented migration and to reduce access to social welfare programs that were thought to be an incentive for high levels of immigration into the United States. Immigrants and their organizations recognize that they are operating in a more restrictive policy environment but it is not clear that these changes have significantly affected the complex conditions in home countries and the economic incentives that continue to lead to significant levels of immigration into New York. The organizations that we interviewed told us that the new welfare and immigration laws have increased the costs of immigration but that these increased costs have been borne by the immigrants themselves and their relatives through paying higher prices for passage and documents, a higher probability of apprehension and deportation, and through reduced access to needed social services for themselves, their families, and their children. There was a consensus among the organizations we interviewed that the laws were having the intended effect of pushing people out of welfare, reducing the incentives and opportunities for legal immigrants to receive social services and welfare benefits, and making the lives of undocumented immigrants much more difficult. However, many agencies stressed that the new laws appear to have failed to significantly reduce the number of families below poverty, or levels of documented and undocumented immigration.

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immigration policy welfare provision social policy United States immigrant population