Comment from Cremin, Kevin, Legal Services NYC

Legal Services NYC, Manhattan Legal Services, Queens Legal Services, the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, the Legal Aid Society, and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice are writing to provide recommendations in response to the request for comments about how the Social Security Administration (SSA) should achieve the laudable goal of providing “a safer work environment for [its] employees, while at the same time ensuring that [its] claimants continue to receive a full and fair hearing on their claims for benefits.” Based on our extensive experience serving the legal needs of people with disabilities and people with limited English proficiency (LEP), we believe that the interim final rules should be modified to ensure that they do not result in discrimination against claimants based on their disabilities, national origin, or primary language. In this notice, the SSA states that it “must balance the risks to the public and [its] employees against [its] service delivery obligations.” This statement excludes a vital aspect of the equation: When the SSA investigates whether a “claimant or another individual poses a threat,” it must also comply with applicable law, including the Due Process Clause, the Rehabilitation Act, and Executive Order 13166. Our recommendations, which are attached, focus on the changes that applicable law requires the SSA to make to: (1) the definition of the relevant threat; (2) the bases for determining whether such a threat exists; and (3) the procedures that the SSA can lawfully implement when such a threat exists.