Cash Assistance - Safety Net Assistance (SNA) - Expanded Rules Allowing More Immigrants to Qualify

Effective immediately, New York State has expanded eligibility guidelines to include new categories of non-citizens.

New categories of eligible non-citizens include those with an application or petition pending with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for Asylum (with no Employment Authorization Document (EAD)), Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) status, among others. See GIS 23 TA/DC039 https://otda.ny.gov/policy/gis/2023/23DC039.pdf for a complete listing.

In NYS, individuals who apply for Cash Assistance are assessed for either the federally-funded family assistance (FA)program or the NYS-funded safety net assistance (SNA) program. While the benefit levels are typically the same for both FA and SNA, they target different populations, with the major difference lying in the rules for determining eligibility for non-citizens. FA has very strict rules for non-citizens, whereas SNA rules are more flexible, allowing more immigrants to be eligible.

We have updated our Immigrants’ Eligibility Chart to reflect this change.