On June 27, 1997, eight pregnant women filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of approximately 70,000 indigent, immigrant women residing in California. Plaintiffs challenged a provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 ("Welfare Reform Act"). The Act made undocumented immigrants ineligible for state funded public benefits, except for emergency care, certain immunizations, and treatment of communicable diseases. Section 411(d) of the Act gave states the right to override the Act by enacting state legislation stating a clear intent to do so. Plaintiffs challenged Section 411(d) of the Act under the premise that California, which already had a separate law that provided health care to undocumented aliens, would be forced to restore any benefits preempted by the Act. Plaintiffs claimed that this interfered with the state's right to adjudicate its own legislative process.

The defendants moved to dismiss the suit for lack of standing. The District Court (Judge Susan Illston) granted the motion and dismissed the case. Doe v. Wilson, 1997 WL 811778 (N.D Cal. 1997). Plaintiffs appealed.

For reasons that are not apparent from the docket, the appeal was voluntarily dismissed by a stipulation of the parties in August, 1999. This is likely related to mediation of several consolidated challenges to California's Proposition 187, which would have denied undocumented immigrants a wide range of state-funded benefits. In 1999, the parties reached an agreement to maintain an injunction against enforcement of those restrictions.

Elizabeth Daligga - 07/02/2012


compress summary