Vladimir, a journalist with a passion for Eastern cultures, chose keepsakes from among his prized Chinese dragons and Asian statues. Thankfully, the Russian Department of Culture signed off on the delicate artifacts. They also got permission to bring along some paintings.

Their jobs and Larisa's father's status as a general in the Soviet army had afforded them certain privileges, like world travel, that were off-limits to their fellow comrades.

But the arrival of capitalism and democracy cast even Vladimir and Larisa's world asunder. When communism collapsed in the early '90s, they were stripped of everything from their Marxist ideals to the pensions they had worked 50-some years to earn. It was a confusing time in a place where the working class had always prevailed and professionals like Vladimir and Larisa, an interpreter and teacher, earned lower wages.

So when they got a chance in 1999 to be free, they seized it.

Two hours after an exit interview at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, the United States granted them refugee status and, with it, the benefits that would allow them to start over.

"We didn't believe it at first," says Larisa, reflecting on how easily Russia let them go.

Before they knew it, they were soaring over the Atlantic.

As soon as they stepped on U.S. soil, they were welcomed with the promise of $930 a month and the medical care that would ensure treatment of 74-year-old Vladimir's memory loss and hypertension and 78-year-old Larisa's breast cancer, hearing and vision loss, anxiety and osteoporosis.

The grateful couple moved into a subsidized housing development where other Russian-speaking refugees lived. They hung paintings—a lake bordered by naked trees, a snow-covered field—above the sofa in their modest one-bedroom Bensalem apartment to remind them of stark Russian winters.

They made friends, learned to pay bills—which were new to them, having lived in a socialist society where the government provided necessities—and even attended a few concerts at the Kimmel Center.

Vladimir, or Vadim for short, planted flowers in the front yard and, although Larisa shook her head every time he got behind the wheel, he drove their 13-year-old grandson to tennis practice.

Almost seven years have passed since Vladimir and Larisa arrived in America.

But now, due to post-Sept. 11 policy changes, America has broken its promise to them.

In three months, the benefits they need to live will be gone.

The others? "They're becoming completely indigent," says Jonathan Blazer, public benefits policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center in Washington, D.C. "Some of them are becoming homeless."

Until their citizenship is approved, the only hope for people like Larisa and Vadim is a bill pending in Congress that would extend their benefits long enough for them to become citizens eligible for permanent benefits. But at a time when U.S. lawmakers are tightening the border with Mexico and debating whether a guest-worker program would lessen the burden of illegal immigration, why should the country give this group of non-citizens special treatment?

It's simple, says Jonathan Stein, general counsel at Community Legal Services in Center City. America promised it would.

"We invite them here because they are fleeing persecution," he says. "It's the affirmative action of our country to have them here. You can't let them starve and go without the necessities of life. That would directly contradict that invitation."

There are two kinds of public assistance in the United States. The first, welfare, has a lifetime cap of five years and is intended to fill in the gaps between periods of work. The second, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), is for people too sick or old to work. The vast majority of people on SSI are U.S. citizens born and raised in this country. According to the Social Security Administration's most recent data, in December 2004, just fewer than 7 million people received SSI.

Only 677,000 people on SSI were non-citizens, like Vadim and Larisa. In addition to refugees, this group of "humanitarian immigrants" includes asylees and a few other non-citizen groups, all of whom escaped persecution in their homelands.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton's welfare-to-work reforms made sweeping changes in the way this country doles out public assistance, but the legislation affected humanitarian immigrants even more significantly. The new rules said that humanitarian immigrants who received SSI benefits had five years to enter the United States, get green cards and become naturalized citizens, or else the checks would stop.

The provision made no sense because refugees and asylees by law had to wait a minimum of five years just to apply for citizenship. At that time, application processing took about six months.

Congress soon recognized the absurdity of limiting SSI to five years and extended the benefits to seven years. But the extension did little. Since then, the process has only slowed further.

Before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a bureau of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, can approve a citizenship application, the applicant must pass a security check. After Sept. 11, the checks became more thorough and can take two years to clear. Compare that to the six months it used to take for the entire application to be stamped "approved."

The government does not deny that background checks take time, but "we are not swayed to bend on this because someone may be losing a benefit," says USCIS spokesman Dan Kane. USCIS plans to reduce processing time for citizenship applications back down to six months. The faster system is set to launch on Oct. 1, the same day Vadim and Larisa lose SSI. And it only affects new applicants.

Asylees used to face an additional challenge because only 10,000 of them annually could be granted green cards, needed before they could apply for citizenship. The cap was lifted last year, but there's still a huge backlog.

Add these governmental barriers to personal barriers—like paying for classes to prepare for history and language citizenship exams and learning new skills in old age—and it's easy to see why it can take so long for humanitarian immigrants to become citizens.

Raisa Davidovich, a paralegal at the local chapter of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), says immigrants rejected by their motherland feel doubly devastated when the United States turns its back on them.

"Their home country didn't give anything to them," she says. "This country gives them benefits. That's why they feel obligated to love this country."

Her 30 clients, including Vadim and Larisa, hail from the former Soviet Union, but asylees and refugees from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Somalia, Lebanon, Turkey and other countries who sought shelter in the United States all face the same fate.

"They don't know how to fight," she says, putting the phone to her ear and switching to Russian to console another elderly, sick client.

While it's unclear how many refugees and asylees will be able to make ends meet after they lose their benefits, Davidovich says at their age, money is not their only concern. They want to feel like they belong.

One of her clients, 68-year-old Boris Mazik, lost his benefits last summer. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he insists. "I can't complain."

He and his wife live on a monthly stipend of $817; their rent is $750. Mazik, who says he was denied promotions in Russia because he is Jewish, passed the U.S. naturalization exams in April 2004.

LIBERTY LOST: On Oct. 1, Larisa Kovaleva and Vadim Zherebilov expect the U.S. government to cut off the benefits that allowed them to move here from the former Soviet Union. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

"He was so happy," Davidovich says. "He started sobbing right there in the corner of the waiting room."

But before the government scheduled him to be sworn in, his SSI stopped coming, which means he's dependent on what's left of his wife's SSI after rent. At press time, his security background check had still not cleared.

"The relationship was the nicest," she says. "There was real brotherly love."

After the war, the United States presented her father with the star-shaped medal and red ribbon now dull from age for his "performance of outstanding services and exemplary meritorious conduct." As the first in the family to meet Americans, her father told stories about his U.S. comrades, like the chaplain who would remove his collar to play soccer with the pilots. But that was before the Iron Curtain slammed down between the two countries and speaking of the American enemy could have gotten him in trouble.

When Kovalev died, the Soviet government confiscated all his decorations and returned to her family only one, the U.S. medal.

Years later when Vadim, a business journalist for the Soviet News Agency, got a chance to leave Moscow and work in the New York bureau, he, Larisa and their 10-year-old daughter packed their bags. (Larisa's other daughter from a previous marriage was older than 15 and therefore could not get permission to travel.) By this time, the Cold War was in full swing and even in the United States, the Soviets kept a close eye on the family. If they went to the movies, an officer working with the KGB stationed outside their Lincoln Towers apartment noted when they left and when they returned.

They were free to travel to New Orleans, Niagara Falls, Boston, Chicago and other cities, but Vadim's superiors in New York and Moscow had to approve their route and itinerary. Still, they felt fortunate.

"We were happy to have a chance to live another life," says Larisa, recalling how they bought books by Russian authors that were censored at home. The Soviet government did not want them communicating with Americans, but their daughter learned about Americans' lifestyle from television and had to adjust when the family returned to Russia four years later. "The poor child had to face all those teachers with their authoritative style."

The girl's principal told her she was spreading "capitalistic instincts" and she had to switch schools. As she pursued studies in Scandinavian literature, she vowed to move back. Eventually she married a man with family in the United States and they immigrated here in 1993. Six years later, Vadim and Larisa followed.

"It's hard for old people to change everything and move," she says.

But her parents soon learned to adjust to life in a real democracy. They looked forward to the day—a minimum of five years after entering the country—when they could apply for citizenship. Larisa and Vadim went to the HIAS office in the Northeast a few months early to ensure all their paperwork was submitted on time. As upstanding citizens in Russia who had never been in trouble, they had every reason to believe things would go smoothly. But they couldn't have anticipated how attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon would affect security checks.

The seven-year clock started ticking when Vadim and Larisa touched down on U.S. soil five years earlier. They had two years to go before the government would cut off their SSI. That seemed like plenty of time for USCIS to complete security background checks on two people who had no criminal history.

As expected, Vadim was called for fingerprinting. (Larisa, being older than 75 at the time, was exempt.) They still had 22 months to spare. As they waited for word from the USCIS, they prepared for the language and civics tests that would determine whether they would ever raise their right hands and recite the Pledge of Allegiance as full-fledged citizens. Vadim knows some English, but Larisa's hearing problems and advanced age have kept her from learning English the way she mastered French and Italian during her career as an interpreter.

"They were so anxious," Makarov says. "They were learning the language, studying the questions."

Six months passed. Finally, a letter arrived on May 17, 2005, only 16 months before they'd lose SSI. It said they were to report downtown to take their exams. Everything seemed back on track. That is, until a second letter appeared in their mailbox one week before their appointment.

"Due to unforeseen circumstances," it read, "we have had to cancel the previously scheduled interviews. … We regret any inconvenience this may have caused. We will advise you of any further action taken on this case including any rescheduled interview information under separate notice."

That was 13 months ago. They haven't heard from USCIS since.

Three months: That's all the time they have left.

"They started to worry right away," Makarov says of her parents, adding that she and her husband will have to figure out how to support them. "It's so unfair. They feel so helpless."

Davidovich says USCIS told her the couple's background check was holding up the interview. She was given the same reason when she called on behalf of another client, 69-year-old Irina Pecherskaya. She had never gotten in trouble in Russia but, unlike Vadim and Larisa, Pecherskaya was targeted because of her ethnicity.

Even though she had always tolerated the anti-Semitic culture—Pecherskaya was beaten up at age 15 just for being Jewish—the threats grew more hostile in the mid-'90s. As people began to embrace democracy and express their opinions, she says, they openly blamed Jews for the regions' economic and social ills. In America, Pecherskaya said to herself, life would be different.

"Everyone who came here thinks of this as a country of equal rights, opportunity, brotherly love," she says in soft, stilted English. "Nice people. Love. Respect."

Asked how she feels now, a month after losing SSI, Pecherskaya starts to cry.

In Russia, she hated how the government would blast patriotic songs while it relegated her to second-class citizenry. When "The Star-Spangled Banner" plays, she says, "The same is true now."

As Davidovich's clients wait for USCIS to finish the security checks, immigration experts try to make sense of the government's tactics. Surely, they don't believe humanitarian immigrants in their 70s are plotting to hurt the United States.

"It's confusing," says Makarov, "especially when they read the newspapers about the government listening to our phone calls. It reminds them of the former Soviet Union."

Stein, of Community Legal Services, says USCIS is exploiting a loophole that lets federal judges intervene if immigrants are not sworn in 120 days after they take the exams.

<>By not scheduling the exams, USCIS can keep people in limbo indefinitely.

All Vadim can do is wait and check the mailbox. "When nothing is there," he says, "we are upset."

When their SSI ends on Oct. 1, they will receive $316 a month from the state's general assistance program, half of which will cover rent. (Singles get $205.) Their medical care, which covers prescriptions, doctor visits and hospitalization, will end, but Davidovich says they plan to apply for Medicaid.

Blazer, of the National Immigration Law Center, says California and five other states go even further than Pennsylvania by picking up part or all of humanitarian immigrants' SSI tab once the feds stop paying it. But these solutions are only Band-Aids on the problem and, ultimately, it's up to the federal government to craft a long-term fix such as eliminating the expiration altogether as with food stamps.

THE DEFENDER: Raisa Davidovich represents 30 humanitarian immigrants who have lost, or are about to lose, their beneifts. "They don't know how to fight," she says. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Blazer says it's "highly questionable," as to whether the United States should compel people to become citizens or face indigence.

"We want people to be making a decision that they want to call the United States the country to which they give their full allegiance," he says.

Not just the country that sends them a check.

But Blazer says looking at a window of time is more palatable to politicians than permanently extending SSI. "You'd be forced into finding what you're going to cut elsewhere to achieve those savings," he says.

That's where House Bill 899 and Senate Bill 453—The SSI Extension for Elderly and Disabled Refugees Act—come in. The act would reset the SSI clock to nine years from the time humanitarian immigrants come to America. Advocates hope this two-year extension fills in the gap between when SSI benefits end and the government can finish security background checks.

If passed, it would not only set Larisa and Vadim free from worries about how they will pay rent or buy groceries, but also give them the satisfaction of knowing the government hasn't forgotten about them.

But with a much higher-profile immigration debate going on, experts say the bill is unlikely to move unless it's attached to a larger set of reforms.

"There are a handful of people who this would help," says Leighton Ku, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., "and people in principle probably are willing to help them, but it's not a huge enough cause that it generates momentum on its own."

Although Bush's last two budget proposals have included one-year extensions, Blazer says Republicans have not supported SSI the way advocates had hoped. For example, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter's people say that although he's a sponsor of the Senate bill, there's nothing he can do because it's stuck in the finance committee. U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's camp won't even comment beyond spokesman Robert Traynham saying the office is looking into it.

But U.S. Rep. Phil English, who has supported the legislation since before it was introduced in the House, has more motivation to talk up the extension. His constituents demand it.

The Republican represents northwestern Pennsylvania, including Erie, a city that had seen a recent influx in refugees from the Ukraine, Russia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan and Iraq. He won't go so far as to say the government has let people down, yet, he says, "I would rather err on the side of reaching out and providing a measure of protection rather than running the risk that people we want to help will fall between the cracks."

People who try to lump humanitarian immigrants in with illegal immigrants misunderstand the debate, he says.

"The United States has benefited internally and internationally from its reputation as a supporter of refugees and the destination for refugees," he says. "If we turn our back on that tradition it will represent a significant loss for us."

And then there's the matter of paying for it.

The extension would cost taxpayers $235 million in new spending over five years, according to SSA data compiled by HIAS.

Add that budget-buster to a Congress that's scrambling to clear what's already on its calendar and it doesn't look good for Vadim and Larisa.

"There's always a chance," says Candice Hunt, assistant director of HIAS in Washington, D.C., "but I'm not holding my breath."

Vadim and Larisa know they can't pin their future on a bill mired in politics. With the paintings of their bleak motherland looming large behind them, they enjoy the little things when they can.

<> It's not deportation they fear; it's the uncertainty of being without a country.

Larisa wipes her eyes, exhales and goes to the fridge. Vadim fiddles with the latch on a cabinet in the living room.

A few minutes later, the table is crowded with bowls of dark chocolate and nuts, an apple pie, ice cream cones, a block of cheese, coffee and a bottle of sweet, red vermouth. Vadim fills the glasses.

Despite all they're going through, they drink to their lives in America.

After all, it's their home.