Shocking US government leaflet tells Mexican immigrants they can collect food stamp benefits without admitting they're in the country illegally

Conservative legal group obtained Agriculture Department flyer

'You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children'

Program in all 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S. helps push food stamps



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A Spanish-language leaflet that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided to the Mexican Embassy in Washington advises border-crossing Mexicans that they can collect taxpayer-funded food stamp benefits for their children without admitting that they're illegal immigrants.



Underlined and in boldface type, the document tells immigrants who are unlawfully in the United States that, 'You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.'



The USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, is funded in order to prevent hunger by helping poor families maintain a basic level of nutrition for both adults and children.

Congress spent $86.5 billion on the SNAP program in 2012, by far the largest single line-item in the USDA's $205 billion overall budget

The underlined portion reads: 'You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children'

The Agriculture Department says SNAP benefits are only to be distributed to U.S. citizens and other legal residents. On its website, it acknowledges an education 'partnership' with the Mexican government, but insists that its aim is to help educate only 'eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States' about nutrition benefits for which they might qualify.



That education partnership is carried out through a program called 'Ventanillas de Salud,' meaning 'Windows to Health,' implemented through 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S.

Judicial Watch obtained the Spanish language leaflet through a Freedom of Information Act request. An attached email dates the document to March 2009, just months after President Barack Obama took office.

In an email, a spokesperson for the SNAP program told The Daily Caller , which first reported on the leaflet, that “non-citizens who are unlawfully present, are not, nor have they ever been, eligible to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

U.S. Border Patrol agents walk fences on the Mexican border, and detain illegal immigrants - including children - before returning them to south of the border. A majority will try to cross the border again



The leaflet, released late Thursday by the conservative group Judicial Watch, will raise questions about the Obama administration's commitment to limiting the expenditure of taxpayer funds to eligible Mexican nationals - meaning those with legal permission to reside in the United States.



'The revelation that the USDA is actively working with the Mexican government to promote food stamps for illegal aliens should have a direct impact on the fate of the immigration bill now being debated in Congress,' Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said in a statement.



'These disclosures further confirm the fact that the Obama administration cannot be trusted to protect our borders or enforce our immigration laws. And the coordination with a foreign government to attack the policies of an American state is contemptible.'



Fitton's group also obtained a March 2010 USDA flyer advertising a taxpayer-funded online seminar for nonprofits serving Hispanic communities. The teaching session, promoted as being 'free for all participants,' taught activists how to get USDA funding to provide free lunches during the summer.

The federal government's SNAP program served about 43.6 million people in November 2010. Before the recession, the program had just 26 million enrollees. The USDA licenses food retailers like this Oregon grocery store as SNAP program participants



And in a March 2012 communication, Judicial Watch said, the USDA asked the Mexican Embassy to approve a letter addressed to that country's 50 consulates. That letter encouraged staff at those Mexican diplomatic missions to learn in another webinar how to encourage more of 'the needy families that the consulates serve' to enroll in the SNAP program.



Judicial Watch said Thursday that the 2012 document did not discriminate between legal US residents and illegal immigrants.



In August, Agriculture Under Secretary Kevin Concannon rolled out a new range of anti-fraud programs aimed at preventing food stamp funds from going to ineligible recipients.



'USDA has a zero tolerance policy for SNAP fraud,' Concannon said when announcing new measures to clamp down on abuse of the program that he promised would 'help us hold bad actors even more accountable than in the past and discourage them from abusing the public's trust.'



The agency's press release, however, made no mention of efforts intended to deny SNAP benefits to illegal immigrants.



People line up for their monthly debt cards and food stamps all over the country

Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is President Obama's Secretary of Agriculture and is responsible for the SNAP program's operation

Last year Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions complained in writing to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack that, 'It defies rational thinking for the United States – now dangerously $16 trillion in debt – to partner with foreign governments to help us place more foreign nationals on American welfare.'