Usefulness of Department of Homeland Security Travel Data to Identify Supplemental Security Income Recipients Who Are Outside the United States

Generally, SSI recipients are ineligible for payments once they are absent from the United States for 30 consecutive days. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Customs and Border Protection maintains TECS, which is a system that collects, among other things, travel data on individuals who enter and leave the United States. Our objective was to determine the amount of Supplemental Security Income overpayments the Social Security Administration could identify using  travel data.