Most Recipients Unfazed by Law Requiring Photos, Fingerprints

Despite concerns that anti-welfare fraud measures enacted across California would keep many eligible parents from seeking aid to feed their families, evidence is growing that few have been scared away, state officials say.

Under terms of a 1996 law, the state began this year requiring food stamp and many welfare recipients to be photographed and fingerprinted, to catch those who illegally apply for aid several times in different counties or under different names.

Statewide, half of the nearly 1 million families receiving food stamps or help under the CalWORKs welfare-to-work program have been fingerprinted so far. Counties also have the option of fingerprinting and photographing general relief recipients, who make up a small portion of the welfare caseload.

Advocates for poor people and immigrants have complained that the move is intrusive and an unnecessary burden on those most in need--a requirement that will keep away legitimate aid seekers, especially immigrants, in droves.

“Now we are treating food stamp recipients like criminals,” said George Manalo-LeClair, a policy director at the San Francisco-based California Food Policy Advocates. “We are talking about vulnerable people, people with little options.”

Welfare officials around the state, however, report that the new requirement is having little visible effect on caseloads. While counties have dropped from the rolls a small number of recipients for failing to submit to the requirement, officials say it is impossible to know how many of those were would-be cheaters, how many were former recipients who no longer needed assistance and how many were eligible people scared away by the process.

Sacramento County, one of the first to implement the program, has fingerprinted 29,000 of its 34,300 welfare cases since March, removing about 1.5% for failure to comply with the identification requirement.

Similar figures are reported in Orange County, with fewer than 1% dropped from the rolls. San Diego County reported discontinuing benefits to 46 households since June. It has completed fingerprinting and photographing about a third of its 35,500 caseload.

The $58-million state program is modeled after a Los Angeles County system that has been fingerprinting its welfare recipients since 1991. The county will convert to the state system, with photographs, next year, officials said.

Los Angeles County officials hail the system, estimating that it has saved more than $80 million since 1991 by deterring and detecting fraud. Experts expect the statewide program to save taxpayers $200 million over four years.

At first, many social workers privately grumbled about the requirement, saying the amount of fraud to be detected wasn’t worth such Draconian measures. But some now are sighing with relief.

“We were worried that they wouldn’t show up in droves and that we would lose half of our caseloads,” said Janice Robb, a project leader for the Orange County Social Services Agency. That didn’t happen, she said.

Welfare agency officials credit outreach, in part, for what appears to be a low dropout rate. Most counties spread the word through community and religious groups and explained that information would not be shared with other agencies. Those who made it to the offices seemed unfazed.

“Some people may worry if they have something to hide,” said 42-year-old Santa Ana resident Lilia Sanchez, who submitted to fingerprinting and photographing recently to collect food stamps and cash aid for her family of four. “We have nothing to hide.”

But critics remain concerned that the identification requirement will dissuade families not already in the system. They argue that collecting fingerprints and photos akin to mug shots brings shame to people already stigmatized by poverty.

Moreover, they say, many immigrants are fearful that the collected information will be shared with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, even though the law forbids it.

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for aid, but they must still be fingerprinted in order to collect benefits for their citizen children. Legal immigrants do not qualify for federal aid, but they may qualify for state-funded programs.

Advocates say many in immigrant communities erroneously believe that seeking public aid can hurt their chances of becoming naturalized citizens. And undocumented immigrants live in a constant state of fear that they will be deported.

“The goal of the government is to help families in need, not to scare them away,” said Tanya Broder, an attorney for the National Immigration Law Center.

In August, a Sacramento legal center filed a lawsuit against the state, challenging the requirement that even adults seeking aid for their children be fingerprinted.

“It is bad public policy to be deterring aid for children who are lawfully entitled to it,” said Stephen Goldberg, an attorney with the Northern California Lawyers for Civil Justice, which filed the lawsuit.

Immigrant advocates say welfare reform has had a disproportionate effect on immigrants and that the new law only adds another barrier. A 1998 study by the Urban Institute showed a 23% drop since 1996 in the number of immigrants seeking public aid in Los Angeles County despite the fact that many were still eligible for help.

“It can’t be all because of the booming economy,” said Broder. “People are eligible for benefits, but there is a chilling effect when you place a variety of barriers, and finger-imaging is just another.”

Welfare officials note that those who fall off the rolls out of fear of fingerprinting can and do reapply. It is a delicate balance that must be struck, they say, to ensure that only those who need help get it.

“We have two goals that sometimes are conflicting,” said Rebecca Fuller, a Sacramento social worker. “One is accuracy, to make sure that we are delivering services only to those who need them. The other is accessibility, so everyone who is eligible receives them. The two are not always compatible.”