As noted above, the restrictions on welfare use by pre-enactment immigrants were never
fully enforced. In particular, the balanced budget agreement reached in 1997 between President
Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress (combined with state actions discussed
below) effectively repealed some of the most draconian aspects of the legislation.7
As a result, few of the pre-enactment immigrants were actually kicked off the welfare rolls.
Moreover, only a relatively small fraction of the immigrant population in the United States
arrived after 1996, so that few immigrants are actually barred from receiving assistance.
It would seem, therefore, that PRWORA could not have had a large impact on welfare
participation rates in the immigrant population—after all, relatively few immigrants could
have been directly affected by the legislation