About a half-million elderly immigrants receive assistance under the Supplemental Security Income program. It's an income assistance program that also entitles them to Food Stamps and Medicaid, which pays for nursing home care for thousands. Laws passed by Congress in the last term would make immigrants ineligible for the assistance. NPR's Vicky Que looks at the possible impact of the changes on a Vietnamese couple in Philadelphia, who are too old to work and have no family in the U.S. to help them. (An adopted son is in trouble with the law.) It's not clear that either local and state public service agencies or private organizations can or will step in.
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