Immigrant Relief Fund problem is lack of solutions

SEATTLE - Undocumented workers are the hidden people in every state, including Washington. Most work hard, pay taxes, and are engaged with their communities.

Our state, however, has decided to ignore its own hypocrisy by working toward making legal means of employment through the H-2A program more expensive and creating a $40 million fund for undocumented workers instead.

State officials announced today the Immigrant Relief Fund is now accepting applications from “Washington residents who are unable to access federal stimulus programs due to their immigration status.” But the Relief Fund itself is a federal stimulus program, so the statement makes no sense.

According to officials at the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, the Immigrant Relief Fund is $40 million of CARES Act funding set aside specifically for use in this program. The relief fund will give $1,000 grants to eligible recipients and up to $3,000 per household to undocumented Washingtonians while the funding lasts.

The economic downturn of COVID-19 has represented a struggle for every community in our state. The problem with the Immigrant Relief Fund is not its goal but rather the lack of real solutions for its recipients.

The grants should come with an asterisk for the recipients, counseling them on how they can go about seeking legal citizenship. That’s because only legal citizenship will regularize their status and enhance their overall safety and quality of life. As legal citizens, immigrant workers would be eligible for a vast array of rights and opportunities that were previously unavailable to them – everything from receiving Social Security benefits to having medical insurance and a lower tax bracket.

If the goal of the Immigrant Relief Fund is to help people only once, then the goal is achieved with a single payment. If the goal is to help people for the rest of their lives, then the rules of engagement need to change significantly.

Undocumented workers need to be encouraged to move from the shadowy darkness of fear of arrests and deportation and into the light of legal citizenship. No one-time relief payment can provide that encouragement.

(PAM LEWISON is the director of the Initiative on Agriculture for the Washington Policy Center)