Vote No on H5740 and Keep ICE Out of South Carolina Benefit Offices

Vote no on H5740. This bill would turn South Carolina’s benefit offices into an arm of immigration enforcement, and I want you to stop it before it ever reaches the floor. H5740 would force state agencies and local governments to hand an applicant’s information to Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they apply for public benefits. Alan Morgan calls this verification. What it really does is put a federal deportation agency at the other end of every food assistance form and every Medicaid application. Families with citizen children will read that and decide the risk is not worth it. Hungry kids will go without groceries. Sick parents will skip the doctor. Legal residents and citizens get swept into the fear right alongside everyone else. South Carolina should not be scaring eligible people away from food and healthcare to score a political point. Public benefits keep neighbors fed, housed, and healthy, and that is the whole reason they exist. Kill H5740 in committee and keep our agencies focused on serving people, not reporting them.