“SAN FRANCISCO - San Diego County investigators can search welfare applicants’ houses without warrants to prevent fraud and ensure they are eligible for assistance, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
Welfare advocates, meaning the ACLU, unsuccessfully claimed the searches, which include peeking in closets and cabinets, are unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the county in 2000, claiming the so-called home visits violated the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful searches. Failure to submit to the searches, which can last an hour, disqualifies applicants from assistance.

Under the program adopted in 1997 to cut down on fraud, unarmed investigators from the district attorney’s office arrive unannounced at applicants’ houses to verify assets. They also conduct interviews, determine if eligible dependents live there and certify an “absent” parent does not live there.”

Why is this of general importance? Because a great many illegal aliens get onto the various state welfare systems as well as Federal assistance by filing false claims. The searches can turn up all sorts of interesting things, such as stashes of phony documents and the equipment to produce them, rooms full of illegals, rooms full of drugs, rooms full of weapons and evidence of a wide variety of crimes including terrorism!.

The ACLU has consistently shown that it is on the side of the Far Left and against common sense, common decency and freedom. Fortunately, they lost this time around. If people are going to get free money from the state, the state has the right to ensure that these people are entitled under the rules to receive it.

Join the movement to stop the ACLU!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 10:39 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.