In the past 25 years NILC has earned a national reputation as a leading expert on the complex interplay between immigrants legal status and their rights under U.S. laws. Our policy advocacy played a key role in the successful restoration of benefits to many of the immigrants who lost eligibility under the 1996 welfare and immigration laws; our work has been instrumental in securing significant federal agency rulings that have ameliorated some of the harshest effects of those laws. Over the years