Thread: Crackdowns target welfare cheats

Crackdowns target welfare cheats

By Judy Keen, USA TODAY

States and localities across the nation are taking novel steps to crack down on suspected welfare cheats, including mandatory home visits, sophisticated database searches and even DNA tests.

Some people suspected of welfare fraud in Minnesota's Anoka County are being ordered to be swabbed for DNA samples. The county has prosecuted eight criminal cases in the past three years after using DNA to identify a supposedly absent parent. To get illegal benefits, applicants for public aid lied about whether their children's father lived in the home. Only single-parent families are eligible for some aid.

WELFARE '09: More enroll in assistance programs

Jack Heacock of the United Council on Welfare Fraud, a professional group, says tight budgets have resulted in layoffs of investigators and increased emphasis on technology to catch cheaters. How other communities are tracking public aid fraud:

•San Diego County, Calif., investigators visit the homes of public aid applicants to verify occupancy of an eligible child, check assets and make sure an "absent" parent doesn't live in the home. The practice has been upheld in court. "We have zero tolerance toward welfare fraud," says John Haley, commander of the financial crimes division for the district attorney. In 2009, inconsistencies were found in 24% of 23,671 applications, saving $4.5 million.

•Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare saved taxpayers $75 million in the 2009-10 fiscal year with sophisticated anti-fraud and abuse-detection software that analyzes 27 million medical assistance claims each year "in ways never before anticipated," spokesman Michael Race says. Applicants also are checked against 14 databases, including out-of-state employment and federal deceased-persons records.

•In Michigan, some legislators want to crack down on college students' use of debit cards that replaced food stamps, along with the trading of benefits for drugs and alcohol. State Rep. Dave Agema, a Republican, wants random drug tests for welfare recipients, photos on food cards and sting operations on campuses. "We've got to tighten things up," he says.

•In Anoka County, Minn., as the recession increases the need for assistance, it's vital to ensure recipients really qualify, says Bryan Lindberg, chief of the property and drug crime division for the county attorney. "One thing we battle is this sense of entitlement some people have: 'I'm entitled to that money, and I can do what I want to get it,' " he says.

Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU of Minnesota, calls Anoka County's use of DNA tests "a civil liberties minefield." The ACLU hasn't challenged the policy, he says, but "obviously this is the sort of Big Brother thing the ACLU has been preaching about forever."

In a 2009 Anoka County case, a woman who said she didn't know the identities of her children's father had received $222,704 in public assistance since 1992. DNA tests identified the man who fathered a minor child still living in the home. The woman pleaded guilty and will be sentenced Sept. 22.

A judge must approve search warrants for the DNA tests. Penalties for welfare fraud can include up to 10 years in prison.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/201 ... 6_ST_N.htm

THIS IS ALL WELL AND GOOD, AND THEY SHOULD ALSO PUT A STOP TO ILLEGALS RECEIVING WELFARE OF ANY FORM THEY SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO GET THESE TAXPAYER BENEFITS IN THE FIRST PLACE, AND IT IS ONE OF THE REASONS THEY ARE COMING TO AMERICA. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS TAKING FROM AMERICAN CITIZENS IN ORDER TO GIVE TO ILLEGALS THAT ARE MOSTLY FROM MEXICO, WHILE THE MEXICAN PRESIDENT AND THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT TALK S**T ABOUT THE U.S.A. BUT THEY THINK ITS OUR PLACE TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR PEASANTS WHO ARE HERE ILLEGALLY

San Diego County, Calif., investigators visit the homes of public aid applicants to verify occupancy of an eligible child, check assets and make sure an "absent" parent doesn't live in the home. The practice has been upheld in court.

Isn't this how it was done in the 70's?

Originally Posted by MontereySherry

San Diego County, Calif., investigators visit the homes of public aid applicants to verify occupancy of an eligible child, check assets and make sure an "absent" parent doesn't live in the home. The practice has been upheld in court.

Isn't this how it was done in the 70's?

IT SURE WAS DONE THAT WAY IN THE 70's

Originally Posted by MontereySherry

San Diego County, Calif., investigators visit the homes of public aid applicants to verify occupancy of an eligible child, check assets and make sure an "absent" parent doesn't live in the home. The practice has been upheld in court.

Isn't this how it was done in the 70's?

This isn't new in San Diego. They have been doing this for many years.

From 2007

Applying for Welfare in San Diego? Say goodbye to your rights...

Submitted by djlotu5 on Tue, 07/24/2007 - 9:17pm

Stephen Colbert comments on San Diego District Attorney Bonnie M. Dumanis's systematic invasions of the homes of the poor...

Applying for public assistance to feed your children in San Diego requires submitting to a search of your home by agents of the County's top prosecutor, District Attorney Bonnie M. Dumanis.

The ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties filed suit to stop Project 100%, arguing that the District Attorney’s invasions of homes of the poor violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches. When a district judge ruled that government agents going through an impoverished citizen’s bedroom closets and medicine cabinets looking for evidence does not even amount to a “search,â€Â

Full Constitutional Protection for Some, but No Privacy for the Poor

By Adam Liptak
The New York Times
Monday 16 July 2007

In San Diego, poor people who want public benefits must give up their privacy. Investigators from the district attorney's office there make unannounced visits to the homes of people applying for welfare, poking around in garbage cans, medicine chests and laundry baskets.

Applicants are not required to let the investigators in. But they get no money if they refuse.

Lawyers who have sued on behalf of the applicants say that being poor should not mean having to give up the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable government searches. So far, the courts have disagreed, saying that rooting out welfare fraud justifies the searches, but not without drawing some fierce dissents.

"This situation is shameful," seven dissenting judges wrote when the full federal appeals court in San Francisco refused to rehear the case a few months ago. "This case is nothing less than an attack on the poor."

Luis Aragon, a deputy district attorney in San Diego, said the county had struck a sensible balance.

"Whenever one goes into a home," Mr. Aragon said, "of course you have to be concerned. The dilemma San Diego faced was, either you say yes to everybody or you have some verification.

"As for intrusiveness," he continued, "you probably went to college. You probably said you were a pretty good student. And they said, 'Yeah, but we want to see a transcript.' Doesn't the government have the right to some level of verification?"

I don't recall any admissions officers going through my sock drawer, but it was a long time ago and I was a distracted teenager.

The main problem, Mr. Aragon said, is the "alleged absent parent." Applicants sometimes claim to be single mothers when there is a man around the house, and investigators are on the lookout for that man.

"They're looking for boxer shorts in a drawer," said Jordan C. Budd, a law professor who represented the plaintiffs when he was legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in San Diego. "They're looking for medicine in a man's name."

But the investigators do not limit their inquiries to potential welfare fraud. If they come across evidence of other crimes, like drug use or child abuse, they pass it along to the police and prosecutors.

The program apparently did reduce welfare fraud, or at least save money. According to the county's statistics, the denial rate for welfare applications rose to 48 percent from 41 percent over five years, and there was 4 to 5 percent increase in withdrawn applications.

The San Diego program is the most aggressive one in California and perhaps in the nation, but the recent decisions have probably given governments around the country all kinds of ideas. An earlier home-visit program, instituted in New York in 1995 by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, was largely dismantled as part of the settlement of a lawsuit in 1997.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in San Diego said the money the county saved was not worth the price in privacy and dignity.

"The poor are presumed guilty, presumed lazy and presumed to be trying to gain something they don't deserve," said Professor Budd, who now teaches at the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H. "It's a general poverty exception to the Fourth Amendment."

The majority in a divided three-judge panel decision last year upholding the program made two basic points. The first was that people are free to opt out - by giving up their welfare benefits.

The dissenting judge called that a false choice for an applicant desperate to feed her children.

The majority also relied on a 1971 Supreme Court decision, Wyman v. James, which upheld a New York program involving scheduled visits from social workers, not surprise searches by investigators from a prosecutor's office. The Supreme Court said the main purpose of the New York visits was "rehabilitation."

At his deposition in the case, Mr. Aragon said his office's investigators were not in the rehabilitation business.

"I'm trying to imagine what rehabilitation would be," he testified. "Get off the couch. Get a job. I don't know."

The plaintiffs have until next month to decide whether to ask the Supreme Court to hear their case. They say they have not made a final decision, which is a little surprising given the importance of the issue and the volume and vehemence of the dissents. But they may have reason to fear what the current Supreme Court would say.

One of the dissenting judges, Harry Pregerson, writing for himself and six colleagues in April, suggested one sort of argument that might be promising. He said there was a double standard at work.

"The government does not search through the closets and medicine cabinets of farmers receiving subsidies," Judge Pregerson wrote. "They do not dig through the laundry baskets and garbage pails of real estate developers or radio broadcasters."

Only the poor, he said, must "give up their rights of privacy in exchange for essential public assistance."

http://www.truth-out.org/article/full-c ... ivacy-poor

San Diego County Finds More Welfare Fraud.

By Joanne Faryon
May 13, 2010

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Who's Supervising San Diego?

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors controls a $5 billion budget and makes decisions affecting your health and safety. They oversee services that range from prosecuting criminals to feeding the poor. Learn about your supervisor’s priorities and how the group spends your money.

SAN DIEGO — A state auditor’s report shows San Diego County uncovers more public assistance fraud than other large California counties. But the county also investigates a disproportionately high number of welfare and food stamp applicants.

CalWORKS used to be known as welfare. On average, the program provides about $500 per month in financial aid to families in need. Under state law, counties must investigate fraud in social services programs such as CalWORKS and food stamps. A state auditor’s report shows San Diego County investigates and uncovers fraud in disproportionate numbers relative to other counties in the state. In 2008, the county denied, discontinued or reduced the largest number of CalWORKS applications: more than 4200.

John Baier from the state auditor’s office says that San Diego County made up about 5 percent of the state's CalWORKS caseload in 2008, but accounted for 17 per cent of all the early fraud referrals.

The county has long been criticized for making it difficult for people in need to access public assistance. The district attorney’s office says it’s the county’s policy to investigate all new CALWORKS applicants for possible fraud. And they say they find it in nearly 25 percent of all applications.

“Every applicant goes through an eligibility interview with HHSA and then is referred to us," says John Haley, the lead investigator with the DA’s fraud division.

The state auditor's report also found San Diego County outranks all of the other counties in cost effectiveness. For every dollar it spends on investigating CalWorks, it saves $2.60 over a three-month period.

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/may/13/sa ... are-fraud/

Originally Posted by MontereySherry

San Diego County, Calif., investigators visit the homes of public aid applicants to verify occupancy of an eligible child, check assets and make sure an "absent" parent doesn't live in the home. The practice has been upheld in court.

Isn't this how it was done in the 70's?

Yeah...before political correctness ruled the day. Lets hope the implement similar measures here in Orange/LA County.

Originally Posted by LadyStClaire

Originally Posted by MontereySherry

San Diego County, Calif., investigators visit the homes of public aid applicants to verify occupancy of an eligible child, check assets and make sure an "absent" parent doesn't live in the home. The practice has been upheld in court.

Isn't this how it was done in the 70's?

IT SURE WAS DONE THAT WAY IN THE 70's

Yep it sure was....I remember hearing so many of those welfare cheats whining about it all....and a lot of them stopped having 10 babies...I remember it well just like it was yesterday...

Kathyet