Both legal immigrants and undocumented parents face hurdles in getting aid. The problem has grown more acute as children of immigrants account for a growing share of young people.

Jacqueline Acevedo is an American citizen who misses out on government aid.Credit...Desiree Rios/The New York Times

NASHVILLE — Jacqueline Acevedo is a shy seventh grader who spends long hours at the Baptist church where her father serves as a volunteer pastor after earning a scant wage from his day job selling bread.

Gabriel Garcia is a talkative 10-year-old whose mother is a chemist but drives for Uber and whose father squeezes grocery costs by posting receipts on the refrigerator door.

Although the families differ greatly — Jacqueline’s parents are unauthorized Salvadoran immigrants with little education, while Gabriel’s left rewarding professions in Venezuela and won legal asylum in the United States — the Nashville-area youths have two things in common.

They are children of poor immigrants. And their families have less access to aid than natives with the same incomes.

Children of immigrants, the fastest-growing group of American youths, have poverty rates more than twice those of other children. That is partly because their families earn less than native workers, but also because they face more barriers to government support. The barriers are largest for children of undocumented immigrants, but families of legal immigrants face obstacles, too.

More than 40 percent of the country’s poor...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiTGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm55dGltZXMuY29tLzIw...