The US Food Stamp Program is a federal assistance program that provides food to low income people living in the United States. Benefits are distributed by the individual states, but the program is administered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Most food stamp benefits are now distributed using Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards but for most of its history the program has used paper vouchers of some kind.

MONTANA -- An El Salvadoran who was in the United States illegally has been sentenced to eight years in prison for using a false identity to receive government benefits. Tomas D. Ramirez, 44, was ordered to pay $18,000 in restitution for federal and state student aid and food stamps he received illegally.

Fourteen people are charged in a food stamp fraud investigation in South Florida, totaling over $4 million.

Thirty-one individuals linked to a $30 million food stamp fraud scheme were arrested here this morning following the culmination of a four-year undercover investigation headed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Every year, food stamp recipients exchange hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits for cash instead of food with retailers across the country, a practice known as trafficking. From 2000 to 2005, the Food Stamp Program has grown from $15 billion to $29 billion in benefits.