"The Trump administration has escalated its campaign against alleged benefits fraud, freezing social services funding for five Democratic-led states and announcing a new fraud-focused position in the Justice Department that will report directly to the White House. Officials also point, without evidence, to immigrants as the primary drivers of the fraud. Late Friday a district judge in New York blocked the funding freeze for now."
"Accusations of benefit fraud are as old as the programs themselves The first major American social welfare program was pensions for Civil War veterans, "and that likewise was associated with a lot of accusations of fraud and mismanagement by the government," says public policy expert Don Moynihan at the University of Michigan. He says longstanding tropes around welfare fraud persist today, along with actual fraud, but the Trump administration is politicizing the issue."
The Trump administration froze social services funding for five Democratic-led states and created a Justice Department position focused on fraud reporting directly to the White House. Officials identified immigrants as primary drivers of alleged fraud without providing evidence. A federal judge temporarily blocked the funding freeze. The structure of U.S. safety-net programs creates opportunities for scammers, and program design and enforcement gaps permit improper payments and fraud. Allegations gained attention after unsubstantiated claims about Somali American daycare centers in Minnesota, renewing scrutiny of a long-running Minnesota benefits scandal that has produced more than 60 convictions.
Read at www.npr.org
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