These cuts indeed hurt us all, and are reflected in homeless rates and in emergency room costs.

Undocumented, as opposed to lawfully present, immigrants are even more marginalized in the debate. Some California counties have cut them off from nonemergency medical care, seemingly unfazed by the possibility of generating worse, and costlier, health crises down the line.

Even within the narrow rules governing federal access to benefits, evidence is mounting that many immigrants and their U.S. born children are shut out by bureaucratic obstacles. Contrary to stereotypes, the combination of immigration crackdowns and welfare reform has, as Columbia's National Center for Children in Poverty put it:

exacerbated immigrants’ reluctance to turn to the government for assistance, compounding the impact of linguistic and cultural differences and racial and ethnic discrimination. Many immigrants fear that any contact with government officials could jeopardize their immigration status and/or lead to the discovery and deportation of undocumented family members.

The Government Accountability Office's new report on sponsored immigrants (those who came to the country through a connection with, for example, a relative or spouse) indicates many immigrants who might qualify for public benefits could be deterred from applying by unclear policies, fear of interference with their sponsor's legal status, and other hurdles.

Governor Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts, which also gut school funding and public medical care, are pretty unpopular all around. But the loss of resources for immigrants is compounded by a longstanding, convoluted and unequal federal benefit system. The federal stimulus package promised an emergency boost for states, but it won't fundamentally change the two-tired system that has locked out the country's new arrivals, in good times and bad.

Image: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times