How to report Food Stamp Fraud

EBT Nation!

I’ve been writing about Food Stamp Fraud as a hobby here for nearly 6 years, but had never seen the USDA information on how to report it.  I know in my county a few years back, watchful citizens reported it to the local Police Chief who took it from there and the fraudster was busted.

If you see any suspicious activity at your local convenience store, say something. 

For all of our coverage of food stamp fraud busts involving immigrant-run stores, click here.

This just popped up in my alerts:

How Can I Report SNAP Fraud?

If you see or hear about SNAP fraud, tell us. Help us protect your tax dollars.

FNS takes aggressive measures to fight all fraud. We appreciate the help of concerned citizens.

    • Fraud reports of any kind may be filed with the USDA Office of Inspector General.

      • Call
        • (800) 424-9121
        • (202) 690-1622
        • (202) 690-1202 (TDD)
      • Write
        • United States Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General PO Box 23399 Washington, DC 20026-3399
      • Online
  • You can also report fraud to your State. This is especially important if you think that someone lied about their income or assets, or is misusing their benefits.

Your report is confidential.

Help us Fight SNAP Fraud.

VDARE writer mentions RRW

Editors note:  This (below) is reprinted with permission from VDARE.  If you are not familiar with this website that is a forerunner—long before RRW—with long-time writer/researcher Thomas Allen covering the refugee beat, be sure to check it out every day.  I follow VDARE on twitter, here.

Almost daily at RRW we get new readers, our subscribers as of today number 630.  I know that isn’t much by big blog standards but for a narrowly focused blog on a subject very few Americans know about, it makes us happy.  We also generally reach on average 1000 additional visitors a day.  Today is September 1, help us find one subscriber a day so that by October 1, we should have 660 subscribers.

By the way, that Arizona food stamp fraud story went through the roof yesterday with over 1,200 readers just on that post alone.

Here Allen gives RRW a shout-out!

The Refugee Resettlement Mess In The Words Of Three Experts.

Some 80, 000 refugees enter the US every year under the Refugee Act. It’s basically an expedited, subsidized (refugees are immediately eligible for benefits) immigration program for favored groups—notably, in the past, Soviet Jews. I’ve covered this scandal for VDARE.com since 2000. Recently, three comments by experts caught my eye.

Anne Richard, formerly of the private refugee resettlement contractor International Rescue Committee and now directing the State Department’s refugee bureau, talked with contractors about the successes of the refugee resettlement program. (Remarks: 2013 Refugee Resettlement Conferences. May 20, 2013)

Refugee “self-sufficiency” has always been an important measure of success in refugee resettlement and a basis for assigning refugees to contractors. In other words: do well in showing your refugees are “self-sufficient” and you will be rewarded with more contracts and more money.

But amazingly, after decades where the primary program emphasis has been on employment and “self-sufficiency,” all the upbeat Richards could cite as employers of refugees are

That’s it. No wonder the Refugee Industry has had to redefine “self-sufficiency” downward.

Today, a refugee can be considered officially “self-sufficient” while using all of these federal programs:

  • Medicaid
  • Food Stamps
  • Public Housing
  • Cash from Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
  • Social Security Disability Insurance
  • Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) (direct services only)
  • Child Care and Development Fund
  • Independent Living Program
  • Job Opportunities for Low Income Individuals (JOLI)
  • Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
  • Postsecondary Education Loans and Grants
  • Refugee Assistance Programs
  • Title IV Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Payments (if parents are qualified immigrants-refugees, asylees, etc)
  • Title XX Social Services Block Grant Funds

In contrast, Ann Corcoran’s Refugee Resettlement Watch recently featured (Former refugee resettlement worker blows the whistle on refugee program failures; calls for moratorium) a devastating open letter from a former Deputy Director of the International Rescue Committee [IRC] Boston office to his former colleague at the State Department.

Michael Sirois, a 25-year veteran in the field, wrote:

Early on, I grew familiar with the fraud that was rampant throughout the program, from the refugees themselves (sometimes forgivable), the overseas OPE’s [Overseas Processing Entity] (not forgivable) and on up to the UN (most unforgivable). Most of my colleagues were also aware of it, and while they often joked about it, almost no one did anything to change or challenge it.

In our work, it was all about ‘getting the numbers,’ often at the expense of legitimate screening for ‘real’ refugees.

To be honest, I never turned a blind eye to obvious fraud, but had been instructed to give all refugee applicants “the benefit of the doubt.” Yet there were many applications about which I had serious reservations. Some of them were classically laughable ( “I don’t remember my mother’s name…let me make a phone call…”). There were more than a few applicants that I rejected (or referred to another Volag [“voluntary agency”, frequently church-based] that might not have had the same concerns).”….

My major concern was helping people re-unite with close and legitimate family members whose relationship I believed to exist in fact. I can’t tell you how many times, after resettlement that those relationships were revealed to be fraudulent. Sometimes the reasons were understandable from a human kindness point of view (claiming an orphaned niece as a sister), but often those “relationships” were simple financial transactions.

In my long years at the IRC, I assisted many ethnic groups. I can say without reservation that the Somalis were among the most duplicitous. There was a time when I suggested that they swear on the Quran before signing the affidavit of relationship. Most of the time they would flee and not return. That practice was discontinued, being deemed politically incorrect.

All of us in the field know just how weak the “security screening” was. It’s mostly a very poor and ineffective system of simple name checks from countries that for the most part keep no records [Emphases added]

Sirois ended his letter with a plea for a moratorium on the program, as the current program “is a huge mess and a danger to our security and a detriment to our economy and society.”

Which brings me to my third expert:

Ken Tota, [Email him] Deputy Director at HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, made the mind-boggling comment, at an Office of Refugee Resettlement conference, that Congress has never in his 25-year tenure questioned the refugee quota proposed by any Administration. [Fact Sheets, Refugee Resettlement Watch, June 20th, 2013]

I tried to decide the tone of his delivery—was it derisive, mocking, triumphalist? A reader of the transcript of the talk might be excused for assuming it was reported in just such tones. It should have been reported in such tones.

Canada: Police raid Toronto’s ‘Little Mogadishu’ neighborhood

This is old news, but better late than never—it happened in June—we missed it then, but now we have it to add to our archives on Somali “refugees” gone wild.   Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’.

The gang raid resulted in 43 arrests and the whole mess dragged the controversial Mayor into the news (again).

Controversial photo: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, obviously in the middle palling around with the Dixon City Bloods. I assume the now-deceased Smith is on our right and Somali “refugee” Mohammed Khattak on our left, but the photo description linked in this post (below) is confusing.

From The Globe and Mail:    Readers will have to read down many paragraphs before getting to the word ‘Somali.’  The only hint in the first section of the long report is that reference to ‘Little Mogadishu.’ (We have one of those in the US too—it’s called Minneapolis).  Emphasis is mine.

The predawn raids on the Dixon City Bloods – a gang alleged to have committed shootings and robberies in its bid to control a stretch of Toronto’s Little Mogadishu – were one year in the making.

Police Chief Bill Blair held a news conference Thursday to release details on Project Traveller, an investigation that started last June with the goal of cracking down on firearms and drug trafficking, but grew to include allegations of murder and attempted murder.

The chief spent much of the roughly 40-minute news conference swatting aside questions on whether Mayor Rob Ford was linked to the investigation. But he also spoke about the harm the group known as the Dixon City Bloods, or the Dixon Goonies, had done, and the relief their dismantling would bring to those in the community.

“We know many families that have lost their sons to violence and we are endeavouring to bring justice to those people and reassurance to all families who live in fear of losing their sons to similar violent events,” he told the dozens of journalists at Toronto Police headquarters.

Keep reading down many column inches…..

The suspects

The Dixon City Bloods

The massive police bust targeted a loosely organized gang whose turf encompasses a one-kilometre stretch of Dixon Road in North Etobicoke.

The area, known locally as Little Mogadishu for the prevalence of recent Somali immigrants, is largely the domain of the Dixon City Bloods, who go by so many names and tags that many people along the Dixon corridor regard them as disorganized and relatively harmless group of friends.

But in an afternoon press conference on Thursday, Toronto Police singled out the group as a violent drug-running organization that has been the target of an intense one-year investigation.

The photo!

Mohammed Khattak

One man arrested during the mass police raids will seem familiar to Toronto city hall watchers.

Mohammed Khattak, 19, is one of the men who posed alongside Mayor Rob Ford and homicide victim Anthony Smith in a photograph that emerged with media reports about an alleged video showing Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.

The photo shows Mr. Ford with his arm around 23-year-old Anthony Smith, who was murdered in a downtown shooting on March 28. Mr. Khattak escaped the same shooting with serious gunshot wounds to his hand and leg. His face appears blurred in the photo published by the Toronto Star and Gawker.com, but his mother confirmed to The Globe and Mail that it’s her son. She added that he’s been scared for his life since the shooting, which left him with a severe limp and a severely injured arm that remains a source of intense pain.

That’s all I know for now.  I don’t have time to see what the follow-up has been since June.   If anyone has a minute, send us a comment with a link to the latest on this case and the clearly troubled Mayor.  Is he still in office?