{"id":814,"date":"2026-05-29T22:12:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T22:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=814"},"modified":"2026-05-29T22:12:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T22:12:29","slug":"doj-moves-to-boot-short-term-immigrants-from-obama-phone-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=814","title":{"rendered":"DOJ moves to boot short-term immigrants from \u2018Obama phone\u2019 program"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Justice Department has issued a new legal ruling concluding that the Lifeline program to provide phones for the indigent \u2014 which gained fame as \u201cObama phones\u201d \u2014 is subject to normal welfare rules limiting the ability of immigrants to sign up.<\/p>\n

Read more Commander of U.S. Forces Korea calls South Korea a \u2018dagger\u2019 aimed at China<\/a><\/p>\n

Legal migrants must have been in the U.S. for at least five years to sign up, the Office of Legal Counsel ruled. Illegal immigrants were already supposed to be barred.<\/p>\n

The program helps pay for phones and voice and data plans for those hovering around the federal poverty line, or who receive another qualifying form of public assistance.<\/p>\n

Until now, the program, run by the Federal Communications Commission, didn\u2019t require citizenship or immigration status checks, but merely a Social Security number.<\/p>\n

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Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser said in the opinion that migrants may have a Social Security number for various reasons, and it isn\u2019t a good yardstick for whether someone has a viable immigration status for the phone program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government should not be spending the money of hard-working Americans to provide phone and Internet service for ineligible recipients,\u201d FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said. \u201cToday\u2019s opinion from the Department will go a long way in putting an end to this kind of abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Lawmakers host whistleblowers, UFO investigators to press feds to come clean about space aliens<\/a><\/p>\n

More than 8 million people had Lifeline phones as of December.<\/p>\n

The Lifeline program has existed since the 1980s, and was intended to help homeless and poor Americans have a landline phone.<\/p>\n

It expanded to pay for cell phones in the George W. Bush administration.<\/p>\n

But the program gained significant public attention \u2014 and notoriety \u2014 in the Obama administration, when a woman in Cleveland went viral in a video urging people to reelect Barack Obama, saying she and all her friends \u201cgot Obamaphones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep Obama in president,\u201d the woman says. \u201cHe gave us a phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sign up if you\u2019re on food stamps, you\u2019re on Social Security, you got low income, you\u2019re disability,\u201d she said in the video.<\/p>\n

The program is funded by the Universal Service Fund, a fee paid by telecommunications providers, who then pass the charge on to consumers.<\/p>\n

Read more Democrat moneyman Reid Hoffman defiant as feds probe bankroll of sexual assault suit against Trump<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Justice Department has issued a new legal ruling concluding that the Lifeline program to provide phones for the indigent — which gained fame as “Obama phones” — is subject to normal welfare rules limiting the ability of immigrants to sign up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nDOJ moves to boot short-term immigrants from \u2018Obama phone\u2019 program - Home Buyer Relocation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/homebuyerrelocation.com\/?p=814\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DOJ moves to boot short-term immigrants from \u2018Obama phone\u2019 program - 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