News from NCLEJ
Coalition calls NYS Food Assistance Program "unconstitutional"
For Immediate Release
June 24, 2002
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, JUNE 24, 2002: A coalition of public interest lawyers are filing a major class action lawsuit late today seeking food stamps for needy legal immigrants who live in New York State. The lawsuit, Teytelman, et al. v. Wing, alleges that the New York State Food Assistance Program ("FAP") is unconstitutional in the way it distributes - and often denies - food stamps to poor legal immigrants. The law authorizes food stamps only if the immigrants, who are here with the approval of the federal government, can meet various tests which have nothing to do with need. For example, a needy and hungry immigrant who is financially eligible for food stamps will nevertheless be denied such assistance if she arrived in the country after 1996; traveled outside the U.S. for more than 90 days; moved from one county to another since 1996; or failed to apply for U.S. citizenship. As a result of these arbitrary restrictions, 12,000 of New York’s neediest and legally-present immigrant children, elderly, disabled persons, and domestic violence survivors go hungry.
Two of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Yankel and Vera Teytelman, originally from the Ukraine and now living in Brooklyn, are 73-year-old holocaust survivors who currently live on public assistance and donated canned food. Grace Lovell, a domestic violence survivor originally from Guyana now living at a confidential "safe haven" address in New York, relies on public assistance and canned goods to support herself and her 6 year old son, Teo, who has numerous food allergies, anemia, and sleep apnea. Because she was denied food stamps under the law, Lovell cannot afford to provide her child with the iron-rich foods the boy’s doctor says he needs to stem his anemia. Djeme Ndiaye, a former U.N. nutritionist from Mali, was beaten unconscious by an abusive husband before she escaped to a domestic violence shelter last year. She and her small son now live on public assistance, donated canned goods, and "macaroni and cheese," because it’s "cheap." Ducardo Gutierrez, an elderly man from Colombia now living in Queens, is physically and psychiatrically disabled, and has been denied food stamps. After paying his rent, he survives on $2.00 a month, and relies on senior centers, social services organizations, and "the kindness of [his] friends" to avoid starvation. Shanelle Vincent , a 12 year old girl from Jamaica, now living in Brooklyn, lives with her 2 year old brother who gets food stamps because he was born here, though she cannot get food stamps herself because she was not. All of the plaintiffs would be eligible to receive food stamps, lawyers say, were it not for the unconstitutional immigrant restrictions in the Food Assistance Program.
The lawyers representing the plaintiffs seek to overturn the unconstitutional tests, and obtain current and retroactive food stamps for affected poor people. "The plaintiffs are legal New York State residents whom the State Legislature has already determined to be particularly vulnerable and needy," said Anne Pearson of the Welfare Law Center, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs. "They are no less needy if they travel outside the country or if they cannot apply for citizenship right away," Pearson added. "The prohibition on moving from one county to another works a special hardship on domestic violence survivors who frequently need to move to a new location in order to escape a batterer," said Jennifer Baum of The Legal Aid Society. "To deprive a woman and her children of needed nutritional supplements because they have crossed county lines to preserve their safety is absurd."
Last year the New York State Court of Appeals struck down similar restrictions on immigrants’ receipt of state-funded Medicaid in Aliessa v. Novello. The Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the state was impinging on Congress’s power to control immigration by creating the immigrant-based restrictions and that this violated equal protection. The Court of Appeals also held that the restriction violated Article XVII of the New York State Constitution by imposing on eligible New York immigrants an overly burdensome eligibility condition having nothing to do with need, "depriving them of an entire category of otherwise available basic necessity benefits." Under Aliessa, "the FAP restrictions clearly violate both equal protection and Article XVII," said Constance Carden, staff attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group, which also represents the plaintiffs. "The only reason these immigrants are denied food stamps is because of immigration-related criteria such as the date they arrived in the United States."
The coalition of lawyers representing the plaintiffs includes the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, the Welfare Law Center, the New York Legal Assistance Group, the Legal Aid Society, and the Greater Upstate Law Project.
PLEASE CALL FOR A COPY OF THE COMPLAINT OR TO ARRANGE FOR AN INTERVIEW WITH PLAINTIFF(S) AND/OR COUNSEL.
Welfare Law Center (Anne Pearson/Rebecca Scharf, 212-633-6967)
New York Legal Assistance Group (Constance Carden, 212-750-0800, ext. 123)
The Legal Aid Society (Scott Rosenberg/Jennifer Baum, 718-422-2787)
Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (Sister Mary Ellen Burns, 212-822-8329)
The Greater Upstate Law Project (Ellen Yacknin, 716-454-6500 )
