There are exceptions for these restrictions on immigrant’s qualifications for means-tested benefits. Perhaps the most important is for refugees and asylum seekers, who remain eligible during their first five years in the United States for TANF benefits, after which states may continue benefits or limit their eligibility and for their first seven years for food stamps and SSI benefits.

Other exceptions to the bar on means-tested benefits for immigrants include immigrants who have worked in the United States for 40 quarters or more, veterans and those on active duty, persons with deportation/removal withheld, Cuban-Haitian entrants, Amerasians, Hmong and highland Lao tribe members and certain Native Americans born in Canada or Mexico who are entitled by treaty to live in the United States.

In addition, many programs are exempt from the general five-year bar for means tested government assistance. This includes emergency medical assistance; emergency disaster relief; national school lunch benefits; child nutrition act benefits; public health assistance for immunizations, testing and treatment of symptoms of communicable diseases; foster care and adoption assistance; programs specified by the attorney general; higher education; means-tested programs under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; Head Start, and the Job Training Partnership Act.