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Equal Protection, Immigrants And Access To Health Care And Welfare Benefits – A 2014 Update, Mel Cousins

Mel Cousins

The introduction of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) led to considerable litigation on the rights of immigrants to welfare benefits and access to health care. There was significant divergence between the approaches adopted by the different courts (both federal and State) based, in part, on the different statutory schemes involved but also on different approaches to equal protection. However, none of the cases reached the Supreme Court so the ‘correct’ approach remained unclarified. In response to the Great Recession and subsequent budget crises, several States have again excluded certain legal immigrants from the scope …