By The SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
Tuesday, October 9, 2001

Using the proposed farm bill as a vehicle, Congress must right a wrong done five years ago.

As a result of the federal welfare reform legislation adopted in 1996, legal immigrants were pronounced ineligible for food stamps.

Washington legislators, being more humane than their D.C. counterparts, stepped into the breach to set up a state-funded program for those who had followed the rules when entering the country. Currently, more than 40,000 legal immigrants here are being given food stamps at a cost of $5 million to $6 million annually. But in many other states the legal immigrants are not as fortunate.

The vehicle to do the right thing is before Congress; both houses are considering renewal of the food-stamp program as part of the farm bill. Today's legal immigrants must regain their eligibility for food stamps.

Congress can argue forever about how to intervene in such social problems as drug addiction, inadequate education and homelessness. Hunger is nowhere near that complex: Every legal resident who is poor and hungry should be fed.

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