Court Upholds Cuts in Aid to Noncitizens Who Are Old, Blind or Disabled

Thousands of impoverished elderly, disabled or blind legal residents of New York State, including refugees, will be limited to $352 a month in public aid — about half of what lower courts have said they should get — under a decision by the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.

The 5-to-2 decision, rendered on Tuesday, overturned the rulings of two lower courts, which had held that under the state and federal Constitutions, such legal residents could not be denied a higher level of benefits simply because they were not citizens. On narrower grounds, the high court held that the state had no duty to fill in for a federal program that had stopped benefits to most disabled legal immigrants in 1996.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/nyregion/15benefits.html

By Nina Bernstein — New York Times