Lifeline Supporters Slam DOJ Opinion on Proposed Restrictions

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr had requested the opinion following the agency's February approval of an NPRM, which proposed rules that critics say could mean additional procedural hurdles for obtaining support in a program that already doesn’t reach many of those who are eligible (see 2605050076). Reply comments on that NPRM are due Tuesday in docket 11-42.

Commissioner Anna Gomez partially dissented on the item (see 2602180038), saying at the time that it would “unnecessarily weaken” the program and undermine the ability to serve consumers “under the guise of preventing waste, fraud and abuse.”

Gomez also criticized the DOJ opinion in a statement Friday. "This opinion has nothing to do with program integrity and everything to do with shrinking the pool of subscribers who qualify for support for affordable phone and internet service,” she said. “It is a deliberate effort to discourage legal, eligible subscribers from claiming support they have earned, while creating a sweeping new surveillance apparatus that targets ordinary people rather than the carriers and private actors the FCC's own Inspector General has repeatedly identified as the primary drivers of Lifeline fraud.”

DOJ made clear in a news release Friday that clamping down on benefits to immigrants has the enthusiastic support of President Donald Trump's administration (see 2605290052). The release quoted Carr, who said, “The government should not be spending the money of hard working Americans to provide phone and Internet [service] for ineligible recipients.”

“Why in the world would we make access to Lifeline more difficult for folks who so desperately need it?” asked former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps in an email. “That’s the last thing we need if we are serious about ubiquitous access to communications in the 21st Century.”

Joe Kane, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's director of broadband and spectrum policy, said the FCC is right to take a deep dive into Lifeline issues. The program could be “one of the main tools to address one of the main causes of the digital divide,” he said in an email. “To do that, it must have a size and structure that matches the needs of low-income Americans and have mechanisms to ensure program integrity.”

Matt Wood, vice president of policy for Free Press, slammed Carr for asking for the clarification. "It's unsurprising … that Trump's FCC lackey got Trump's DOJ to agree with his immoral attacks.” Wood told us Carr has complained about improper Lifeline payments in California, “when the rate of such payments in Texas is even higher,” but “that wouldn't serve this administration's misguided attacks on blue states.”

Wood also called the NPRM “political theater,” since Lifeline benefits are already limited to citizens and qualified immigrants. “None of this legal maneuvering and cruelty-signaling towards immigrants amounts to a change in Lifeline mechanics or expenditures.”

Alisa Valentin, broadband policy director at Public Knowledge, said the administration should focus instead on working with Congress “to ensure this program meets consumers’ modern-day needs,” especially as Americans “continue to struggle to afford basic connectivity.” If the administration’s goal “is to inflict harm on the nation’s most vulnerable consumers … then these proposals would accomplish exactly that.”

Privacy Concerns

In addition, Valentin said that at a time "when our most sensitive data is constantly at risk of being compromised, proposals to collect the full Social Security numbers or even more extensive personal information of eligible Lifeline participants would create massive administrative hurdles for both consumers and providers.” She noted that in initial comments, industry appeared hesitant “to be weighed down economically” by the cost of collecting such data.

A former FCC official said the DOJ opinion is part of “an all-out war on Lifeline” and geared “to make life as difficult as possible for immigrants with undocumented status.”

In the opinion, DOJ said it “conclude[s] that the Lifeline benefit meets both statutory definitions under PRWORA. Consequently, compliance with PRWORA requires more than merely collecting a subscriber’s Social Security Number before enrolling them into the program.”

The opinion characterized the PRWORA as “comprehensive welfare-reform legislation,” which “clarified that the immigration policy of the United States was (and continues to be) that ‘aliens within the Nation’s borders not depend on public resources to meet their needs’ and that ‘the availability of public benefits not constitute an incentive for immigration to the United States.’”

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society said in an analysis Friday that the legal opinion doesn’t “by itself change Lifeline enrollment rules” and that such opinions are “legal guidance to executive branch agencies -- they are not regulations and do not have the force of law on their own.”

It marks the first time that the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel “has formally concluded that Lifeline is subject to PRWORA's immigration-based eligibility restrictions,” Benton added. The opinion didn't estimate how many Lifeline subscribers “could be affected by new PRWORA-based eligibility restrictions -- nor does it address the timeline or process by which the FCC would be expected to act.” It also didn't address “what happens to currently enrolled subscribers who may not qualify under PRWORA,” Benton said.