By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) -Disability rights groups filed a lawsuit on Wednesday claiming the Trump administration and billionaire Elon Musk broke various laws by firing thousands of workers and shuttering offices at the U.S. Social Security Administration.
Five groups and seven social security beneficiaries in the lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., federal court said the cuts at the SSA have disproportionately impacted beneficiaries with disabilities and violated their rights under the U.S. Constitution.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has spearheaded an aggressive campaign to purge the federal workforce, including firing about 7,000 SSA employees, and slash government spending.
The SSA, which sends checks to 73 million retired and disabled Americans each month, is seen as a crucial provider of benefits to elderly Americans. It is one of the few government agencies traditionally seen as off limits for cuts by U.S. politicians.
Wednesday’s lawsuit focuses on the mass firings and the closure of offices that investigated civil rights complaints and provided customer service to Social Security beneficiaries.
“The elimination of civil rights enforcement and customer service offices, the closure of offices, and the mass reduction of SSA’s workforce do not promote efficiency – they sabotage the agency’s fundamental mission,” they said.
The White House and the SSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The SSA last week said it would delay planned phone service cuts to retirees by two weeks and abandon a rule that would have required some disabled and elderly people to travel to an office to claim their benefits.
The lawsuit accuses the SSA and Musk of violating a federal law barring agency actions that are “arbitrary and capricious,” and a different law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. The plaintiffs also say the cuts at SSA violate their constitutional rights to petition the government and to due process.
The lawsuit seeks to bar SSA from closing the two offices and terminating the 7,000 workers, and from requiring beneficiaries to verify their identity in person rather than online or over the telephone.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Sonali Paul)
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