Computer Screens Alien Aid Applicants

Officials of Orange County and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service announced on Tuesday the use of a new immigration service computer that, they predict, can save $3 million a year in welfare payments by screening illegal alien applicants.

The system, known as SAVE for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, is part of a nationwide immigration service effort to help local governments stop benefit payments to ineligible applicants, Harold Ezell, the service’s Western regional commissioner, said at a news conference in Santa Ana on Tuesday.

First County

Orange County is the first county in the state to use the computerized system. Ezell said a similar system for Los Angeles County may be operating within three months.

Under the program, resident aliens who apply for public assistance programs with questionable immigration documents will have those documents reviewed through the service’s data base, Ezell said. Aliens not legally in the country do not qualify for the aid.

The computer stores resident alien documentation or “green card” numbers. The system is designed to detect users of counterfeit green cards or other fraudulent immigration documents. Under the agreement, people suspected of using false documents will be asked to meet with the immigration service.

“If they fail to appear for the interview, they are declared ineligible,” said Dick Ruiz, Orange County financial assistance director for the county’s Social Services Administration.

Ezell said that if the new program were used in all 50 states, it could save $10 billion annually, according to preliminary studies. The cooperative effort was launched in California in 1981 using a manual system. The immigration service estimates that since 1981, the state may have saved $440 million in benefits that otherwise would have gone to illegal aliens. The program covers Medi-Cal, aid to families with dependent children and food stamps.

Colorado and Illinois have joined the program, and other states and federal agencies are expected to participate, Ezell said.

In Orange County, an estimated 400,000 people, roughly 20% of the county’s 2 million residents, are believed to be illegal aliens, Ezell said.

He said that an estimated 1.3 million illegal aliens live in Los Angeles County.

Community activists were quick to criticize the new program.

They pointed to a 7-year-old Orange County study that concluded that undocumented immigrants pay more in taxes than they use in public social services.

Critics said the new procedure seems to enforce rules by intimidating poor people who are most in need.

Many Fail to Report

Ezell said that an average of 92% of applicants for public assistance who are asked to go to immigration service offices for interviews fail to do so, most likely because they are in the country illegally.

Ruiz told reporters that the county’s Social Services Administration is not in the business of separating families. In the case of a mother in the United States illegally who may be applying for aid to her dependent children born in the United States, Ruiz said, “only the child will receive aid. We will not take the mother into account.”