Undocumented Fraud

Q:  Why are there no records?

A:  Because there is child welfare fraud.

No Birth Records = Tough Road Ahead When Aging Out of Foster Care

A lack of proper identification is a national phenomenon.

Dominque Freeman is one of the lucky ones. She is just completing her freshman year at Cal State Northridge, and she’s doing so with the help of a full academic scholarship. Even more importantly, she now has an identity.

Just a year ago, Freeman didn’t exist.

Unlike most U.S. citizens, she had no birth certificate, no social security number, and she’d just aged out of a foster care system that had determined that her case was closed.

Freeman entered into “the system,” as she calls it, just days after her birth. She was raised by her biological aunt who didn’t have the heart to tell her about her situation until she was about to “age out” at 18. Freeman had been accepted to college and when her financial aid advisor asked one simple question: “What’s your social security number?” Freeman said, “I asked my aunt and she was like ‘you don’t have one’. I’m thinking she’s joking and she gave me this long talk. I just started crying. I felt like my dreams were just shattered and it wasn’t even by my choice.”

Unfortunately, Freeman’s case isn’t that unusual. Lara Holtzman, managing attorney with the Alliance for Children’s Rights in Los Angeles, has handled about 40 similar cases in the past two years. At first, the cases took her by surprise. Holtzman said, “How is it possible? I thought it should be an obligation of the Court System and Children and Family Services to make sure a child had a birth certificate, but I was wrong.”

There are no reliable statistics or estimates of the number or proportion of youth in foster care who don’t have birth certificates or social security numbers. But, as Dominique Freeman discovered, those who lack them face daunting prospects. Securing her identity took some detective work on the part of the Alliance. There was no process established on how to get it done. According to Holtzman, in most of these cases the children are born outside of a hospital and they have no birth records...more

 Here is the oxymoron:  "There are no reliable statistics or estimates of the number or proportion of youth in foster care who don't have birth certificates or social security numbers."

If a youth is in foster care, then the youth is under the auspices of the state through Title IV-E eligibility determination.  Once eligibility is established, there are mandated services, such as medical and psychological, that are to be provided.

I smell undocumented fraud.