•     "Under this bill, if an applicant is found to have what the bill details as a ‘reasonable suspicion of identity fraud,’ then they would be subject to additional identity verification. ‘Reasonable suspicion’ is a legal term that is often called ‘articulable reasonable suspicion.’ It’s not a hunch, it’s not bigotry – it is articulable, credible suspicion. When you have that, of course, you should have action taken. I understand this bill would codify the Department's existing actions to combat fraud and ensure that financial aid resources go to students in need rather than perpetrators of fraud and phishing schemes. We need to reduce fraud, and we need to make sure the language really means ‘reasonable suspicion’ in the legal sense, not someone’s hunch or racial bias. But if that’s the intent of the bill, and I am sure it is, I hope the Committee can make sure that’s agreed to and everybody can work together to root out fraud." Source: Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (Democrat, Virginia, District 3)

•     "The bill contains no guardrails to ensure that legitimate students, particularly first-generation applicants, students without traditional forms of identification, students with limited access to smartphones or reliable internet, and students experiencing homelessness or without a fixed residential address, are not disproportionately screened out or delayed. Without those guardrails, the same disparate impacts that have plagued earlier verification procedures could reappear under a different label. Nothing in the bill limits the scope of future fraud detection to what is already in place today, meaning it could expand dramatically to withhold aid from more students. And the bill’s operative trigger, the same as in HR 7891 — “reasonable suspicion of identity fraud” — is a broad legalistic term with little history in federal financial aid policy. This term has typically been used only when referring potential matters to the Department’s Inspector General, where facts and evidence could be carefully gathered by career employees with experience in fraud investigations. This bill radically expands the agency’s powers to make the Secretary the judge, jury, and executioner." Source: The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, Temple University