Citizens. States would also be permitted to utilize the standards most appropriate to the their population as long as such standards were no more stringent than those currently used by the Social Security Administration and includes native American tribal documents when appropriate. Second. the legislation would ensure that individuals are afforded a reasonable time period to provide citizenship documentation utilizing the same reasonable time period standard that is available to legal immigrants to provide satisfactory evidence of their immigration status. Third the legislation protects children who are U.S. citizens by virtue of being born in the United States from being denied coverage after birth because of citizenship verification requirements. Fourth. the legislation also clarifies ambiguities in federal law to ensure that these citizen children. regardless of the immigration status of their parents. are treated like all other lowincome children born in the United States and are deemed eligible to receive Medicaid services for one year. Finally. the legislation also ensures that the thousands of citizen children and adults. who were erroneously denied Medicaid coverage. may receive retroactive Medicaid eligibility for coverage they were inappropriately denied because of citizenship verification requirements. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this critical legislation. which protects lowincome U.S. citizens from being inappropriately denied Medicaid coverage because of lack of documentation.
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immigrants immigration