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Save Our Senior Noncitizens: Extending Old Age Assistance to Immigrants in the United States, 1935–71

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

Cybelle Fox Open the ORCID record for Cybelle Fox [Opens in a new window]
Cybelle Fox*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, USA
*
Email: cfox@berkeley.edu
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Abstract

When do states grant social rights to noncitizens? I explore this question by examining the extension of Old Age Assistance (OAA) to noncitizens after the passage of the 1935 Social Security Act. While the act contained no alienage-based restrictions, states were permitted to bar noncitizens from means-tested programs. In 1939, 31 states had alienage restrictions for OAA. By 1971, when the Supreme Court declared state-level alienage restrictions unconstitutional, only eight states still did. States with more Mexicans and Asians were slower to repeal restriction, however. Using in-depth case studies of New York, California, and Texas, I demonstrate the importance of federal and state institutional arrangements and immigrant political power for the extension of social rights to noncitizens. I also show that to secure access to OAA, immigrant advocates adapted their strategies to match the institutional and political context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Spring 2021 , pp. 55 - 81
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association

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