For those eligible for refugee benefits, it is a group entitlement too good to pass up. Because of the humanitarian nature of the refugee program, refugees are exempt from qualifications and restrictions that apply to other immigrants, who can legally be deported if they become a public charge within five years after their arrival. Besides transitional cash support and a loan for airplane tickets, refugees are entitled to the same welfare programs as U.S. citizens are. Though the federal budget contains line items for refugee support, the bulk of the expense is borne outside refugee programs in the untrackable wilderness of state and federal social services. Since few statistics on welfare utilization account for refugees separately from the general population, the true cost of refugee support cannot be calculated.
Most refugees remain dependent well beyond a year.
A 1992 HHS study of Southeast Asian refugees who arrived between 1986 and 1991 found 52 per cent of the group to be totally dependent upon welfare and an additional 13 per cent to be supplementing earned income with welfare benefits. The average education level upon arrival of those 16 and over in the study group is equivalent to the sixth grade, placing them in the growing and increasingly unemployable unskilled-labor pool. According to senior officials at HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement and the California State Refugee Coordinator, about 53 per cent of all the refugees who have settled in California since 1976 are dependent upon AFDC and other welfare programs. The California data might be expected to show somewhat higher welfare dependency than the national average for refugees owing to peculiarities in counting welfare users in California, and to the state's generous welfare benefits. Refugee flows inevitably have an impact on other immigrant categories.