“SNAP/EBT Food Stamp Benefits Accepted” is displayed on a screen inside a Family Dollar Stores Inc. store in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Dollar Tree Inc. released earnings figures on March 4. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Some immigrants in the state of Massachusetts will be able to access SNAP benefits after lawmakers approved millions of dollars in funding under the supplemental budget.
Covered under the legislation are residents who are not citizens but are in the immigration process or already maintain legal status, including recently arrived migrants and those who have already been here for a long time.
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"It is for immigrants who have an immigration status until today, they may be from DACA, they may be Tepesians, they may be in a legal process, they can show that they are in a legal process," Gladys Vega, from La Colaborativa in Chelsea, told Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra in Spanish on Monday.
Vega said the criteria for eligibility will be a little different because they will have to show proof of a legal immigration procedure to access the benefits. They will be covered under an expansion of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, better known as SNAP.
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In total, $6 million was being allocated to cover this expansion under the recently approved supplemental budget.
Vega said this will help soothe the strain of immigration delays and give families support, even if they don't have a steady income or work authorization yet.
She explains that it is the restoration of a law that operated until 2002, and that the organization worked together with the “Feed Our Neighbors” coalition promoted at the beginning of this year to move it forward.
Mass Law Report and La Colaborativa pushed for this law for all immigrants in Massachusetts who have legal status, said Vega, after finding themselves in a precarious situation to meet the community's need for food, especially with the arrival of more migrants to the state.
According to the state, the program will be in effect until the funds are exhausted and retroactive payments will be issued until the date of signing this law, which occurred at the beginning of this month.
"It's not just for the new immigrants but for the migrants who have been working here who have lost their jobs and now have the great opportunity for them to get stronger and rise up," Vega said in Spanish.
The state says that by spring 2024, it anticipates having all the necessary changes in place for the program to take effect.
For more information, as well as the list of organizations that assist with the SNAP application, you can visit this link.
