A lot of people were left scratching their heads last month when the White House issued an executive order to prohibit the use of federal funds for government benefits to illegal aliens.
At first blush, this order, which the President signed on February 19, may have seemed perfectly clear in its stated intent to end “‘all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens.” Yet, the White House’s own explanatory materials have been silent on the specific programs which the order targets for elimination.
Major news outlets like the Associated Press have been quick to point out that most benefit programs like Food Stamps and Work First already exclude illegal immigrants from participation. A rare exception, according to the AP, is emergency medical care – and it’s precisely these health services that local officials believe are now on the chopping block under the President’s order.
In response to an inquiry from The Alamance News, Candice Gobble, Alamance County’s director of social services, immediately zeroed in on Emergency Medicaid and Emergency Labor and Delivery as the apparent object of the President’s executive order.
“This is a program that has been around for some time,” Gobble went on to explain in an email two weeks ago; “I was trained on the program when I started here in 2013. It is specific to undocumented non-U.S. citizens who do not qualify for full coverage under Medicaid.”
Gobble added that the state uses a specialized contractor to determine whether a particular procedure qualifies as an emergency as well as the period of time that Medicaid will cover for this procedure. Since it is the state that ultimately makes these determinations, Gobble stressed that she and her staff are looking to Raleigh for guidance in implementing the executive order.
“We have not received any guidance from the state regarding the end of this program at this time,” the county’s social services director added in her electronic missive. “Of course, we rely upon the state to inform us of changes related to policy and eligibility determinations, and once guidance is received, it will likely be effective immediately.”
In an interview earlier this week, the county’s social services director conceded that she and her colleagues are still waiting for this state-level guidance.
Gobble added in her email from two weeks ago that the President’s executive order appears to have no bearing on other Medicaid programs that her agency administers. Nor does it seem to affect initiatives like Food and Nutrition, Work First, and subsidized child care which have very precise eligibility requirements.
She noted that, when evaluating an applicant’s eligibility, her department runs applications through a state program called Systematic Alien Verification for Eligibility, which draws on citizenship and immigration databases to vet candidates.
Gobble added that in some cases, legal non-citizens aren’t automatically excluded from certain benefits, although there may be a five-year waiting period “before they can themselves receive services.”
Regardless of their status as either legal or illegal, all non-citizens are excluded from the county’s adult protective services. According to Gobble, her department cannot use “federal, state, or county dollars” to protect an elderly or disabled adult who isn’t a U.S. citizen.
“It is a little different in child welfare,” she added, “as we are not allowed to use federal or state dollars.”
Gobble implied that DSS can still rely on local funds to take juvenile non-citizens into protective custody. She acknowledged that her agency can expect no reimbursement for these local funds. All the same, she said that her department currently has custody of four children who aren’t U.S. citizens.
