Class Action Lawsuit On Fugitive Felon Implementation

From the San Mateo County Times:

The letter didn't make any sense, Rosa Martinez said, because she had never been to Miami, had never used illegal drugs and had never been arrested for a crime.

And yet the Social Security Administration informed her the monthly $870 check she depended on would be cut off because there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest on drug charges, issued in 1980 by the Miami-Dade Police Department.

This week, the 52-year-old Redwood City woman became one of two plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue that contends more than 100,000 people have had their benefits unjustly halted by the federal government.

The suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, asks a judge to prohibit the federal agency from stopping any more Social Security payments to people "fleeing to avoid prosecution" for a felony, which makes beneficiaries ineligible under a 1996 law.

Attorneys for Martinez and a second plaintiff, 19-year-old Jimmy Howard of Santa Maria, say the agency has ceased sending benefit checks to people simply because there is an outstanding warrant in their name, without verifying whether the person is fleeing prosecution or is even aware of the warrant. ...

Social Security officials have demanded that Martinez get proof that she is not the person listed in the warrant, but Douglas said Miami-Dade police have destroyed the original warrant and "proving a negative was incredibly difficult."

A letter by the Social Security Administration's Redwood City district advised Martinez: "If you believe the warrant was issued in error, Social Security must have an original document that states the warrant was issued in error and does not pertain to you at all. It must state the date the warrant was rescinded. This is the only way this case can be resolved."

The suit demands that the agency reconsider the eligibility of anyone who gets any of several types of Social Security payments and has been cut off under the "fleeing to avoid prosecution" rule.