On this page: Read Gov. Paul LePage’s letter to town administrators.

AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage has doubled down on new state guidelines barring undocumented immigrants from receiving General Assistance, decreeing that any municipality that bucks the new rule will see all state reimbursement for the program cut off.

That’s a shift from previous announcements from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, which had indicated that the state would stop paying its share of assistance distributed by towns and cities to undocumented immigrants, not to everyone.

The new rules have caused headaches and confusion for the state’s municipalities, which administer the General Assistance program that provides, usually, one-time assistance to families and individuals experiencing financial and other emergencies. Under the usual scenario, the state reimburses the municipality for between 50 and 90 percent of the assistance provided, depending on the town.

LePage on Monday sent a two-page letter to each municipality in the state, explaining his reasoning for establishing the new guideline, and making his case that the change is legal.

Maine Attorney General Janet Mills has said the rule change is likely unconstitutional.

She and advocates for low-income Mainers have blasted the governor and his administration for changing the rule by executive fiat, rather than going through the rulemaking process established by Maine law, which they said must be followed. They say failure to follow the rulemaking process makes the law unenforceable.

In his letter, LePage said he was relying on a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1996, which prohibited states from providing assistance to undocumented immigrants unless they pass their own laws to the contrary. LePage said Maine has never passed a law, though advocates point to existing state eligibility rules, which do not include citizenship status. They say that means assistance cannot be denied simply because someone is undocumented.

“Some have claimed this marks a policy change that should go through the legislative process,” LePage wrote in his letter to municipalities. “Well, it did: Our elected Congress enacted this law in 1996, and it remains on the books today. The Maine Legislature has had every opportunity in the past 18 years to pass a law mandating that municipalities provide General Assistance to illegal aliens. They have chosen not to.”

He added, “I fail to understand how DHHS’s enforcement of an existing federal law somehow reflects a desire to ignore the will of the people.”

Some municipalities — including Lewiston — have said they would wait to enforce the department’s new guidelines until the discrepancy between the attorney general’s interpretation and the department’s is resolved. That’s a position backed by the Maine Municipal Association.

However, the amount of GA funds provided by municipalities to immigrants who are undocumented — and are not asylees or refugees — is, in most cases, small. Previously, municipalities understood that the reimbursement would be cut off for those recipients, but not all GA beneficiaries.

Now, LePage said the penalty for noncompliance would be significantly more dire.

“If DHHS finds that a municipality fails to comply with the law, it will cut off all General Assistance reimbursement to that community,” he wrote.

Lewiston City Administrator Ed Barrett said he had not received notification from the governor’s office as of Tuesday, but he had downloaded a copy from the Bangor Daily News’ website.

Barrett said the new policy contradicts what city officials were told last week.

“It is a change from what was provided to us in the Health and Human Services guidance,” Barrett said. “They said then that they would just not reimburse us for any ineligible folks.”

Barrett said it puts the city in a difficult position. Lewiston councilors agreed last week that the staff should continue providing General Assistance to people with questionable immigration statuses until the state’s position is made more clear.

“I think there will be more questions about whether the governor can unilaterally make a decision like that,” Barrett said.

He noted that current DHHS administrative rules give the city 30 days to fix any problems and come into compliance before penalties are levied. He said state law requires that cities be reimbursed for General Assistance payments to be valid.

“There also seems to be a bit of a conflict between the administrative rules and what the governor’s letter says,” Barrett said.

Both the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine and the Maine Municipal Association have said the issue will likely have to be resolved in court.

Sun Journal staff writer Scott Taylor contributed to this report.

Governor's Letter to Towns RE GA

Mayor Brennan in Portland says: LePage has “upped the ante” with new GA decree. Portland won’t comply. http://t.co/6YNUJU9FLe #mepolitics

— Mario Moretto (@riocarmine) June 24, 2014

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