Jared Taylor interviews Frank Borzellieri about his persecution by the forces of political correctness and his “crucification” by the Catholic church.
Two years ago, Frank was fired from his job as the principal of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel School for his past articles from American Renaissance dealing with race and immigration. Since then, he has not been able to find another education job.
From now on, the military will have the ability to patrol the streets without obtaining any local or state consent to do so.
Don’t be surprised when one day, they start knocking down peoples doors and hauling them off to prison camps.
Welcome to the upcoming Police State.
From the Long Island Press
The manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects offered the nation a window into the stunning military-style capabilities of our local law enforcement agencies. For the past 30 years, police departments throughout the United States have benefitted from the government’s largesse in the form of military weaponry and training, incentives offered in the ongoing “War on Drugs.” For the average citizen watching events such as the intense pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers on television, it would be difficult to discern between fully outfitted police SWAT teams and the military.
The lines blurred even further Monday as a new dynamic was introduced to the militarization of domestic law enforcement. By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.
The most objectionable aspect of the regulatory change is the inclusion of vague language that permits military intervention in the event of “civil disturbances.” According to the rule:
Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.
Bruce Afran, a civil liberties attorney and constitutional law professor at Rutgers University, calls the rule, “a wanton power grab by the military,” and says, “It’s quite shocking actually because it violates the long-standing presumption that the military is under civilian control.”
A defense official who declined to be named takes a different view of the rule, claiming, “The authorization has been around over 100 years; it’s not a new authority. It’s been there but it hasn’t been exercised. This is a carryover of domestic policy.” Moreover, he insists the Pentagon doesn’t “want to get involved in civilian law enforcement. It’s one of those red lines that the military hasn’t signed up for.” Nevertheless, he says, “every person in the military swears an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to defend that Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.”
One of the more disturbing aspects of the new procedures that govern military command on the ground in the event of a civil disturbance relates to authority. Not only does it fail to define what circumstances would be so severe that the president’s authorization is “impossible,” it grants full presidential authority to “Federal military commanders.” According to the defense official, a commander is defined as follows: “Somebody who’s in the position of command, has the title commander. And most of the time they are centrally selected by a board, they’ve gone through additional schooling to exercise command authority.”
As it is written, this “commander” has the same power to authorize military force as the president in the event the president is somehow unable to access a telephone. (The rule doesn’t address the statutory chain of authority that already exists in the event a sitting president is unavailable.) In doing so, this commander must exercise judgment in determining what constitutes, “wanton destruction of property,” “adequate protection for Federal property,” “domestic violence,” or “conspiracy that hinders the execution of State or Federal law,” as these are the circumstances that might be considered an “emergency.”
“These phrases don’t have any legal meaning,” says Afran. “It’s no different than the emergency powers clause in the Weimar constitution [of the German Reich]. It’s a grant of emergency power to the military to rule over parts of the country at their own discretion.”
Afran also expresses apprehension over the government’s authority “to engage temporarily in activities necessary to quell large-scale disturbances.”
“Governments never like to give up power when they get it,” says Afran. “They still think after twelve years they can get intelligence out of people in Guantanamo. Temporary is in the eye of the beholder. That’s why in statutes we have definitions. All of these statutes have one thing in common and that is that they have no definitions. How long is temporary? There’s none here. The definitions are absurdly broad.”
The U.S. military is prohibited from intervening in domestic affairs except where provided under Article IV of the Constitution in cases of domestic violence that threaten the government of a state or the application of federal law. This provision was further clarified both by the Insurrection Act of 1807 and a post-Reconstruction law known as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (PCA). The Insurrection Act specifies the circumstances under which the president may convene the armed forces to suppress an insurrection against any state or the federal government. Furthermore, where an individual state is concerned, consent of the governor must be obtained prior to the deployment of troops. The PCA—passed in response to federal troops that enforced local laws and oversaw elections during Reconstruction—made unauthorized employment of federal troops a punishable offense, thereby giving teeth to the Insurrection Act.
Together, these laws limit executive authority over domestic military action. Yet Monday’s official regulatory changes issued unilaterally by the Department of Defense is a game-changer.
The stated purpose of the updated rule is “support in Accordance With the Posse Comitatus Act,” but in reality it undermines the Insurrection Act and PCA in significant and alarming ways. The most substantial change is the notion of “civil disturbance” as one of the few “domestic emergencies” that would allow for the deployment of military assets on American soil.
To wit, the relatively few instances that federal troops have been deployed for domestic support have produced a wide range of results. Situations have included responding to natural disasters and protecting demonstrators during the Civil Rights era to, disastrously, the Kent State student massacre and the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee.
Michael German, senior policy counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), noted in a 2009 Daily Kos article that, “there is no doubt that the military is very good at many things. But recent history shows that restraint in their new-found domestic role is not one of them.”
At the time German was referring to the military’s expanded surveillance techniques and hostile interventions related to border control and the War on Drugs. And in fact, many have argued that these actions have already upended the PCA in a significant way. Even before this most recent rule change, the ACLU was vocal in its opposition to the Department of Defense (DoD) request to expand domestic military authority “in the event of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high yield explosive (CBRNE) incidents.” The ACLU’s position is that civilian agencies are more than equipped to handle such emergencies since 9/11. (ACLU spokespersons in Washington D.C. declined, however, to be interviewed for this story.)
But while outcomes of military interventions have varied, the protocol by which the president works cooperatively with state governments has remained the same. The president is only allowed to deploy troops to a state upon request of its governor. Even then, the military—specifically the National Guard—is there to provide support for local law enforcement and is prohibited from engaging in any activities that are outside of this scope, such as the power to arrest.
Eric Freedman, a constitutional law professor from Hofstra University, also calls the ruling “an unauthorized power grab.” According to Freedman, “The Department of Defense does not have the authority to grant itself by regulation any more authority than Congress has granted it by statute.” Yet that’s precisely what it did. This wasn’t, however, the Pentagon’s first attempt to expand its authority domestically in the last decade.
Déjà vu
During the Bush Administration, Congress passed the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill that included language similar in scope to the current regulatory change. It specifically amended the Insurrection Act to expand the president’s ability to deploy troops domestically under certain conditions including health epidemics, natural disasters and terrorist activities, though it stopped short of including civil disturbances. But the following year this language was repealed under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 via a bill authored by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) who cited the “useful friction” between the Insurrection and Posse Comitatus Acts in limiting executive authority.
According to the DoD, the repeal of this language had more to do with procedure and that it was never supposed to amend the Insurrection Act. “When it was actually passed,” says the defense official, “Congress elected to amend the Insurrection Act and put things in the Insurrection Act that were not insurrection, like the support for disasters and emergencies and endemic influenza. Our intent,” he says, “was to give the president and the secretary access to the reserve components. It includes the National Guard and, rightfully so, the governors were pretty upset because they were not consulted.”
Senator Leahy’s office did not have a statement as of press time, but a spokesperson said the senator had made an inquiry with the DoD in response to our questions. The defense official confirmed that he was indeed being called in to discuss the senator’s concerns in a meeting scheduled for today. But he downplayed any concern, saying, “Congress at any time can say ‘we don’t like your interpretation of that law and how you’ve interpreted it in making policy’—and so they can call us to the Hill and ask us to justify why we’re doing something.”
Last year, Bruce Afran and another civil liberties attorney Carl Mayer filed a lawsuit against the Obama Administration on behalf of a group of journalists and activists lead by former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges. They filed suit over the inclusion of a bill in the NDAA 2012 that, according to the plaintiffs, expanded executive authority over domestic affairs by unilaterally granting the executive branch to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without due process. The case has garnered international attention and invited vigorous defense from the Obama Administration. Even Afran goes so far as to say this current rule change is, “another NDAA. It’s even worse, to be honest.”
For Hedges and the other plaintiffs, including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, the government’s ever-expanding authority over civilian affairs has a “chilling effect” on First Amendment activities such as free speech and the right to assemble. First District Court Judge Katherine Forrest agreed with the plaintiffs and handed Hedges et al a resounding victory prompting the Department of Justice to immediately file an injunction and an appeal. The appellate court is expected to rule on the matter within the next few months.
Another of the plaintiffs in the Hedges suit is Alexa O’Brien, a journalist and organizer who joined the lawsuit after she discovered a Wikileaks cable showing government officials attempting to link her efforts to terrorist activities. For activists such as O’Brien, the new DoD regulatory change is frightening because it creates, “an environment of fear when people cannot associate with one another.” Like Afran and Freedman, she too calls the move, “another grab for power under the rubric of the war on terror, to the detriment of citizens.”
“This is a complete erosion of the rule of law,” says O’Brien. Knowing these sweeping powers were granted under a rule change and not by Congress is even more harrowing to activists. “That anything can be made legal,” says O’Brien, “is fundamentally antithetical to good governance.”
As far as what might qualify as a civil disturbance, Afran notes, “In the Sixties all of the Vietnam protests would meet this description. We saw Kent State. This would legalize Kent State.”
But the focus on the DoD regulatory change obscures the creeping militarization that has already occurred in police departments across the nation. Even prior to the NDAA lawsuit, journalist Chris Hedges was critical of domestic law enforcement agencies saying, “The widening use of militarized police units effectively nullifies the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.”
This de facto nullification isn’t lost on the DoD.
The DoD official even referred to the Boston bombing suspects manhunt saying, “Like most major police departments, if you didn’t know they were a police department you would think they were the military.” According to this official there has purposely been a “large transfer of technology so that the military doesn’t have to get involved.” Moreover, he says the military has learned from past events, such as the siege at Waco, where ATF officials mishandled military equipment. “We have transferred the technology so we don’t have to loan it,” he states.
But if the transfer of military training and technology has been so thorough, it boggles the imagination as to what kind of disturbance would be so overwhelming that it would require the suspension of centuries-old law and precedent to grant military complete authority on the ground. The DoD official admits not being able to “envision that happening,” adding, “but I’m not a Hollywood screenwriter.”
Afran, for one, isn’t buying the logic. For him, the distinction is simple.
“Remember, the police operate under civilian control,” he says. “They are used to thinking in a civilian way so the comparison that they may have some assault weapons doesn’t change this in any way. And they can be removed from power. You can’t remove the military from power.”
Despite protestations from figures such as Afran and O’Brien and past admonitions from groups like the ACLU, for the first time in our history the military has granted itself authority to quell a civil disturbance. Changing this rule now requires congressional or judicial intervention.
“This is where journalism comes in,” says Freedman. “Calling attention to an unauthorized power grab in the hope that it embarrasses the administration.”
Afran is considering amending his NDAA complaint currently in front of the court to include this regulatory change.
As we witnessed during the Boston bombing manhunt, it’s already difficult to discern between military and police. In the future it might be impossible, because there may be no difference.
I think this song pretty much spells it all out.
A German family of devout Christians who came to America a couple of years ago in order to have the ability to homeschool their children have been denied asylum.
Here is their story
From the Washington Free Beacon
A Christian family that fled Germany in order to homeschool their children according to their faith was denied asylum on Tuesday by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Romeike family fled Germany in 2008 after receiving heavy fines and the threat of jail time for homeschooling their children, which is illegal in Germany. The family immigrated to Tennessee, where they were able to homeschool their children.
The family filed for defensive asylum in Tennessee, which a Memphis immigration judge granted them. The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division then appealed the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
The board overturned the initial judge’s decision last year, stripping the Romeike family of their asylum protection and ordering them to be deported back to Germany.
The Romeikes then appealed the board’s decision to the 6th Circuit of Appeals, which ruled against the family, according to an announcement by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).
The 6th Circuit ruled that Germany’s homeschool ban is a general law that applies to all people equally, and therefore does not discriminate against those who homeschool for religious reasons.
“The United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment, even treatment that our laws do not allow,” the judges, who decided against the Romeikes unanimously, said in their opinion.
“The court ignored mountains of evidence that homeschoolers are harshly fined and that custody of their children is gravely threatened—something most people would call persecution,” said Mike Donnelly, HSLDA director of international affairs, in a statement. “This is what the Romeikes will suffer if they are sent back to Germany.”
HSLDA chairman Michael Farris pledged to appeal the 6th Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court, according to the statement.
ICE did not return a request for comment.
If deported back to Germany, the parents could face prison time.
What this proves is that the American empire will not tolerate under any circumstances any parent wanting to get their children out of the government controlled schools. They demand that all children must be taught to be good obedient slaves of the System.
Its amazing how a German family who comes over to America just to homeschool their children can be denied asylum, yet millions of illegals who cross over the border in order to feed off the government welfare state are welcomed with open arms.
On a sidenote: Greek politicians have decided they will not ban Golden Dawn….for now.
H/T WND
If this is in fact true, then perhaps it might not only explain why law enforcement seems to turn a blind eye on illegals, but purposely allowing invasion in order to “reconquista” the entire Southwest and bring it back under Mexican rule. – Joe Rebel
The head of the union representing members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department on Thursday stated that immigration enforcement is being run by leaders of a racist group known as La Raza (“The Race”).
According to Chris Crane, the current president of the union for ICE agents, the National ICE Council, President Barack Obama, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and ICE Director John Morton have all but abdicated their leadership in the enforcement of immigration laws and the protection of U.S. borders and citizens.
In a letter to Congress on May 9, Crane and a number of law enforcement executives complained that while business groups, activists, and other special interests were closely involved in the drafting of the proposed Schumer-Rubio immigration reform bill (S. 744), law enforcement personnel were excluded from those sessions.
“Immigration officers and state and local law enforcement working directly within the nation’s broken immigration system were prohibited from providing input,” the letter from law enforcement stated.
“As a result, the legislation before us may have many satisfactory components for powerful lobbying groups and other special interests, but on the subjects of public safety, border security, and interior enforcement, this legislation fails. It is a dramatic step in the wrong direction,” said Crane and the other law enforcement contributors to the letter.
The degree to which this legislation tolerates both past and future criminal activities ensures legalization and a path to citizenship for many criminal aliens and gang members currently residing in the United States, the letter’s signatories stated. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the criminal alien organization MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) alone has upwards of 100,000 members worldwide.
Additionally, Crane and his colleagues claim that S.744 fails to provide for necessary cooperation between agencies and ignores many of the current problems “that are inimical to the proper enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.”
For example, ICE officers are currently directed by DHS to allow adult inmates in jails to lie about their “DREAMer” status in order to avoid immigration arrest. As a result, inmates are permitted to simply walk out of jails without being required to provide proof of eligibility for “DREAMer” status and without any investigation by ICE. ICE officers report overhearing inmates coaching one another on how to lie to ICE officers about having “DREAMer” status to avoid arrest, yet ICE officers are still powerless to arrest them, complains Crane.
The law enforcement officials involved in Crane’s quest for protection of Americans from foreign criminals say they believe these revelations should alarm every member of Congress, and indeed, every American.
“If this legislation was enacted, ICE officers would continue to be powerless to effectively enforce our nation’s laws and provide for public safety as S. 744 does nothing to end these dangerous agency- and department-level directives. DHS will most certainly continue to issue these types of directives which will continue to deteriorate the ability of ICE to provide for public safety and national security,” Crane’s letter to Congress notes.
“We therefore conclude that this legislation fails to meet the needs of the law enforcement community and would, in fact, be a significant barrier to the creation of a safe and lawful system of immigration.”
H/T BATR
When the Internal Revenue Service admits to violations of law by targeting limited government advocate organizations, you know that the non-divulged crimes are much worse. The discloser in the mainstream media is a pleasant astonishment. The usual pattern of protecting “Big Government” is still intact, while the noise and agency diversion on the abuses of the IRS avoid the fundamental problem with federal taxation, based upon a system of deductions, exemptions, incentives and grants. The extortion and intimidation in the enforcement of the tax code is the entrusted role assigned to the IRS by the political hacks that administer the social engineering experiment that is fundamentally changing America.
The politicalization of the system is premeditated. The revelation that Obama governance resulted in IRS scrutiny went beyond Tea Party, targeting of conservative groups broader than thought, should not be shocking. The sycophants in federal employment have a deranged hostility towards any voice that defends and promotes constitutional federalism. Foxnews reports:
“The internal IG timeline shows a unit in the agency was looking at Tea Party and “patriot” groups dating back to early 2010. But it shows that list of criteria drastically expanding by the time a June 2011 briefing was held. It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to “make America a better place to live.” It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of “how the country is being run.”
By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in “limiting/expanding government,” education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform.”
The game of citing partisan hypocrisy in describing respective “enemy lists” avoids the necessary task of replacing the taxation labyrinth, designed to select winners and losers. Every administration uses the bureaucracy to punish political foes and most presidencies intentionally engage in illegal retribution, but all share the virtual immunity from prosecution for their misdeeds. What can we reasonably expect from this Obama scandal? It certainly has the hallmark of being a far more severe constitutional violation than those committed in the heyday of the LBJ, Nixon and Clinton outlaws.
Now be forewarned, that the IRS is charged with overseeing compliance under Obamacare. Giving a mandate for expansion under this current cloud of criminality is the height of arrogance. Notwithstanding, the irreversible loss in credibility, the wholesale revamping of the method of taxation should be examined and a trustworthy replacement adopted. However, before reviewing one such alteration, it must be pointed out, that collecting taxes to finance governmental operations is not the primary purpose of the current system.
Perpetual trillion dollar deficits demonstrate that raising revenue to pay for federal programs lacks the ability to balance budgets. The principal function of the Internal Revenue Service is to facilitate the tax avoidance practices of corporatist transnational conglomerates. The retaliatory mission against working class citizens is ostensibly a disciplinary process to maintain control over the finances of producing contributors. Inhibiting upward mobility for the populace, while accelerating elite’s wealth accumulation, is the destructive result of the tax code.
The Hill offers a solution in the article, House GOP seeks to abolish IRS, replace income tax with consumption tax.
“The FairTax Act, from Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.), would abolish the 16th Amendment, which was ratified 100 years ago this February. That amendment gives Congress the power to impose income taxes without having to spend the revenues evenly among the states.
Woodall’s bill, H.R. 25, would replace the current tax system with a 23 percent consumption tax on all new goods and services. He said Thursday that this change would eliminate the need for a complicated tax code, and would be the kind of tax reform that helps reinvigorate the economy.”
The merits or criticism of a consumption tax and certainly any final amount of the levy certainly deserves a vigorous national debate. However, the need for eliminating the byzantine complexity and inherent inequity in the present punitive tax collection system should be unanimous.
Obviously, the prospect that the establishment ruling class would allow the slaughter of their cash-cow is zero. The entire existence of the Tea Party movement grew out of a desire to restore the principle of no taxation without representation. Yet, the efforts out of the authoritarian globalists are to ramp up even more draconian measures to monitor and intrude into every financial affair of normal people.
The only prudent political response to this intolerable obliteration of our eternal right to the pursuit of happiness is to require a return to the pre income tax system of revenue collection. Just listen to the screams, from those progressive socialists, who demand that the State must use their penalizing power to force egalitarian redistribution upon every wealth creator or economic producer.
The calculated fear factor imbedded into the Internal Revenue Service goes well beyond targeting just conservative groups. Every self-respecting American shares a vested interest in restoring a constitutional government. As it stands now, the prospect of achieving even a reasonable prospect of legitimate authorities is incompatible as long as the IRS is allowed to run amok over the masses who are attempting to petition and redress their government.
“Obama says first learned about the IRS controversy from news reports. He called the purported targeting of conservative groups by IRS personnel “outrageous and there is no place for it.” The IRS has to have “absolute integrity, ” Obama adds.
“You don’t want the IRS ever being perceived to be biased,” Obama said.
The president adds that his administration will get to the bottom of what happened at the IRS. “I have no patience for it. I will not tolerate it.”
How can anyone believe that Obama has clean hands or that some faction within the Internal Revenue Service was operating without his knowledge? Well Mr. President, prove the meaning in your words and put forth the political capital to pass the H.R. 25 legislation.
James Hall – May 15, 2013
Former Labour Cabinet Lord Mandelson ( a Jewish homosexual) boast about how the traitorous white elites in the Labour party sent out search parties in order to bring millions of nonwhite migrants to (once-great) Britain. In doing so, it has not only made native Brits harder to find work, but just about changed the entire demographics of the island itself.
Here you have it, straight out of the asses mouth.
From Express
The former Labour Cabinet minister joked that in 2004 the Tony Blair government not only welcomed people to work but sent out search parties to find migrants because of staff shortages in some economic sectors.
Tories seized on his outburst as a confession that Labour had allowed Britain’s border controls to spiral out of control.
Lord Mandelson’s remarks were made to Labour activists at a weekend conference.
Annual net immigration soared by 65 per cent in 2004 after EU border controls with eastern Europe were relaxed.
Overall the figure quadrupled during Labour’s time in office with a total net influx of 2.2million between 1997 and 2010.
Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps said: “Peter Mandelson’s candid admission that Labour were purposefully letting immigration spiral out of control when in government is yet another damning indictment on their record on immigration.
“Yet Ed Miliband has neither the courage nor the conviction to face up to Labour’s undeniable litany of failures on immigration and refuses to back our new Immigration Bill.”
Speaking at a conference organised by Labour’s Progress group, Lord Mandelson said: “The issue of immigration is more economic than social. The problem has grown during the period of economic stagnation over the past five, six years, because in 2004 when as a Labour government we were not only welcoming people to come into this country to work, we were sending out search parties for people and encouraging them, in some cases, to take up work in this country because we were almost, a sort of full employment economy.
“The situation is different obviously now. We have to just realise and just take cognisance that the entry to the labour market of many people of non-British origin is hard for people who are finding it very difficult to find jobs, who find it hard to keep jobs. For these people immigration tends to loom large in their lives and in their worlds.
“Now that is an inescapable fact and we have to understand it, address it, engage with people in discussion about it.”
Labour faced more controversy over immigration last night when Gordon Brown, who once called for “British jobs for British workers”, accused the Tories of implementing the border control policies once demanded by the anti-immigration campaigner Enoch Powell.
In a speech in Scotland, the former prime minister said: “A party which was once pro-Europe is now anti-Europe.
“A party which was once anti-Powellite on immigration is now becoming very close to being Powellite on that issue.”
So long as these traitorous elites are still in power, it will only get worse for not only Britain, but for the rest of the Western nations. They must be overthrown, less the Camp of the Saints draw even nearer.
If only the British people had hearkened to the warnings that Enoch Powell had given.
Lord Mandelson: Anti-White Jewish homosexual who purposely sent out search parties in order to bring in millions of nonwhites into Britain.
And this is the country that our politicians want to make the 51st state?
H/T CNSNews.com
The federal government spent more than $2 billion to provide food stamps to Puerto Rico in 2012, up to 25 percent of which is untraceable because it is distributed in cash and there is “no way to verify that funds are spent on food,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The funds are used to supply more than one-third of the population of Puerto Rico with food stamps.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Nutrition Assistance Program (NAP) for Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, received $2 billion in Nutrition Assistance Block Grants in fiscal year 2012.
Part of that total includes funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), popularly known as the “economic stimulus,” which passed in 2009 — $165 million in economic stimulus funds went to food stamps in Puerto Rico in FY 2012.
The $165 million in stimulus funding is on top of $494.3 million in food stamp grants to Puerto Rico from the ARRA in FY 2009 and 2010. Stimulus spending will continue towards the program this year, with an estimated $101.3 million in FY 2013.
A spokesman from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service told CNSNews.com that, on average, 1.37 million people received food stamps in Puerto Rico each month in FY 2012. Puerto Rico has a population of 3.7 million, meaning 37 percent of Puerto Ricans are on food stamps paid by the federal government.
Puerto Rico currently has an unemployment rate of 14.2 percent. The median household income is $19,122 per year.
In contrast, in the United States there are currently 47.7 million Americans on food stamps, representing 15.2 percent of the population of 313.9 million. There is, however, a record one-out-of-five households in the United States receiving food stamps.
Instead of operating the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Puerto Rico administers block grants, among which 25 percent of a person’s benefit can be paid in cash, which means there is no way of tracking how the money is spent. (The average monthly benefit in FY 2009 was $240, meaning a recipient could receive up to $60 in cash, according to a 2010 feasibility report.)
A 2010 USDAreport on the feasibility of implementing SNAP in Puerto Rico said that it is “widely acknowledged” that recipients of the current food assistance program in the country use the cash for items other than food.
(AP photo)
“Like SNAP, NAP distributes benefits on an EBT debit card,” the report said. “However, unlike SNAP, up to 25 percent of the monthly benefit may be redeemed for cash.”
“Although the cash is designated for eligible food items, it is widely acknowledged that participants use at least some of their allotted cash for non-food essentials, such as medicine and hygiene products,” the USDA said.
A USDA spokesman told CNSNews.com that there is “no way to verify the funds are spent on food.”
“When cash is withdrawn from an ATM, there is no way to verify that funds are spent on food, however, the 25 percent provided in cash is designated for food purchases,” the USDA said. “One of the main reasons that provisions of 25 percent of the benefits in cash was built into the program was to allow participants without access to certified retailers a way to purchase food.”
Funding from the stimulus law is also administered through cash grants, as an alternative to SNAP, to “improve diets of needy persons residing in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.”
The Food Stamp Program (FSP)began in Puerto Rico on Nov. 1, 1974. That program was replaced with the current system of block grants in 1982.
The eligibility requirements for NAP in Puerto Rico vary according to household size, ranging from a maximum income level of $2,796 per year for a one-person household, up to $12,708 per year for a seven-person household.
The USDA report, Implementing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in Puerto Rico: A Feasibility Study, was prepared in response to a directive from Congress. The USDA said they are not aware of any plans to replace the food assistance program in Puerto Rico with SNAP, and such an action would require change in the law.
