Welfare applications rife with mistakes

04/13/2006

Audit: Some noncitizens got improper benefits

BY JEREMY OLSON
Pioneer Press

County workers made a high number of mistakes while processing health and welfare applications of noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, according to a legislative audit.

The results suggest that some noncitizens improperly received federal and state health benefits while others in need were incorrectly denied those benefits, according to the report, which was released Wednesday morning by the Office of the Legislative Auditor.

The audit reviewed 137 cases in six counties throughout Minnesota, finding mistakes in seven of every 10. While most of the mistakes made no difference, 18 percent of the errors may have resulted in incorrect decisions, said Judy Randall, who led the study.

“Eighteen percent is beyond a reasonable, allowable error rate,” she said.

The audit suggests as much as $200,000 was spent on benefits for people who were ineligible, Randall said. If these error rates were applied to all noncitizens applying for benefits in Minnesota, the cost could be in the millions. Randall declined to make such a projection, though.

Available public services include health care benefits for low-income families and children who are in the United States legally, as well as emergency medical care for illegal immigrants who meet income limits or other criteria. While noncitizens represent only 7 percent of the 698,975 people in Minnesota receiving public health benefits, their numbers are growing fast.

Noncitizens include legal and illegal refugees and immigrants. There were about 173,000 noncitizens living in Minnesota last year, and 44 percent of them received some form of public assistance.

The idea for the audit came from Rep. Fran Bradley, R-Rochester, who has proposed legislation in recent years to limit the access illegal immigrants have to public health benefits.

“I was suspicious for a lot of reasons,” he said after reading the audit summary. “What I’m finding is my suspicions were grossly underestimated.”

He predicted a legislative hearing on the audit results and “strong action” by state and county governments.

This session, Bradley has proposed making county workers legally responsible for notifying immigration officials when an illegal immigrant tries to apply for benefits. Right now, county workers are legally prohibited from doing that.

Only four of the 137 cases reviewed for the audit involved illegal immigrants. Randall said the audit didn’t check for cases in which illegal immigrants submitted fraudulent papers suggesting they were legal immigrants.

Some of the errors included workers entering the wrong immigration status in their computer systems or failing to track whether immigrants’ documents had expired.

When U.S. residents sponsor foreign relatives to enter the country, their income must be considered as part of the enrollment process. Some county workers failed to do this, and some immigrants received public benefits for several years before the errors were corrected, according to the audit.

Errors are common in cases involving Minnesota citizens, but the complex rules for noncitizens make correct decisions that much tougher, said Linda Melnick, who deals with eligibility issues as an attorney for Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services.

“Mistakes are made all of the time,” she said. “We are dealing with computers, and human beings who are error-prone, and policies coming from state and federal government” that are often changing.

The audit called for updating procedures and training on determining eligibility, and the addition of a state employee who specializes in noncitizen eligibility.