The Department of Homeland Security launched an investigation into California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants due to concerns it may have unlawfully distributed Social Security payments to illegal immigrants.
This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles office served a Title 8 subpoena requesting all records from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, which administers CAPI. The subpoena requests records dating back to January 2021, including documentation on applicants’ names, dates of birth, and immigration status.
CAPI is designed to provide monthly cash benefits to aged, blind, and disabled non-citizens in California who are in the U.S. illegally and remain ineligible for federal Supplemental Security Income.
However, the White House believes illegal immigrants may have received SSI payments against the law.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the subpoenas represented the Trump administration’s effort to “identify abuse and exploitation of public benefits and make sure those in this country illegally are not receiving federal benefits or other financial incentives to stay illegally.”
“While this subpoena focuses only on Los Angeles County – it is just the beginning,” she added in a statement that accused “radical left politicians in California” of prioritizing illegal immigrants “over our own citizens, including by giving illegal aliens access to cash benefits.”

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The DHS’s investigation follows an executive order recently issued by President Donald Trump aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from receiving Social Security benefits. The April 15 order directed Noem to “take all reasonable measures, consistent with applicable law, to ensure ineligible aliens are not receiving funds from Social Security Act programs.”
“Such measures shall include… civil or administrative enforcement actions against States, localities, or other similar grantees or subgrantees that do not take adequate measures to verify eligibility, stop payments to deceased or otherwise ineligible payees, or otherwise prevent ineligible aliens from receiving funds from Social Security Act programs,” the order read.