Trump FCC Using False Claims Of Immigrant Fraud To Drive Up Costs Of Broadband For Everyone - Above the Law

Lifeline is a bipartisan program that helps low-income Americans afford broadband or phone service with a $9.25 stipend. The Trump FCC announced reforms intended as cost savings, but the changes are described as gutting the program. The FCC chair claimed Lifeline funds were used for service to dead people in opt-out states and suggested the waste involved immigrants, but the claim is presented as false. The California Public Utilities Commission noted that the cited 116,000 people were deceased while enrolled, with no fraud identified. Proposed reforms are not finalized and include a public comment period, during which groups filed complaints about the changes and raised concerns about their impact.

"Lifeline, developed and supported as a popular bipartisan initiative, is one of countless government programs being gutted by the Trump administration under the pretense of reform and cost savings. Earlier this year, FCC boss Brendan Carr falsely claimed that the "reform" (read: destruction) of the program was necessary due to a bunch of fraud by immigrants. From his original press statement: "Lifeline providers received nearly $5 million in federal dollars to provide phone or Internet service to more than 116,000 dead people in the three optout states. Over 80% of those scams took place in California alone. That type of waste, fraud, and abuse is completely unacceptable.""

"This was, you'll be surprised to learn, a lie. One that mirrors similarly racist claims made by the Trump administration as it targets what's left of the U.S. social safety net. It didn't take long for Carr's lie that "California immigrants are stealing taxpayer dollars" to bounce around the right wing propagandaverse. But as the California Public Utilities Commission noted shortly thereafter, the 116,000 people cited died while on the program. There was no fraud. There's not even coherent evidence they were immigrants (as if that would matter one way or the other):"

"The Trump FCC reforms aren't finalized yet. There's first a public comment period where Brendan Carr will pretend to listen to outside parties and the public. So groups like Public Knowledge and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) recently filed their complaints about the proposed changes with the FCC (spotted first by Light Reading). They make several excellent points, one being that historically, most o"

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