Lawmakers consider bills to reinstate asylum seekers' access to welfare benefits

AUGUSTA — Advocates for Maine’s immigrant community are asking lawmakers to restore asylum seekers’ access to food stamps and MaineCare benefits as part of a broader push to reverse some LePage-era welfare reforms.

In 2011, former Gov. Paul LePage and a Republican-led Legislature passed a suite of welfare reforms that, among other things, excluded many asylum seekers from the state-administered Medicaid program, food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

At the time, Maine was still recovering from the Great Recession and cities such as Portland were seeing an influx of immigrants seeking refuge from war or persecution in central African countries. LePage, meanwhile, was committed to carrying out his promised welfare reforms from an election that also gave Republicans control of the Legislature for the first time in decades.

Eight years later, Maine is still a destination for asylum seekers and that continues to strain social services in the state’s largest city.

Read more: https://www.sunjournal.com/2019/04/12/lawmakers-consider-bills-to-reinstate-asylum-seekers-access-to-welfare-benefits/