A bill has been filed in the Alabama Legislature requiring the state to reimburse citizens who have had their food stamps stolen.

SB230, sponsored by Sen. Vivian Davis-Figures, D-Mobile, states that residents would be reimbursed equal to the amount of stolen SNAP benefits.

Figures told AL.com individuals who were victims of SNAP fraud deserve to be reimbursed since it was no fault of their own and was due to Alabama’s lack of cyberspace security.

“People who were affected by the fraud that happened as a result of the cyberspace insecurity for the state of Alabama are not to blame for them being defrauded,” Figures said. “And I mean, this is a program that people survive on, and it provides food for their families…think about, if your budget for your food was gone and you were not getting that money back from anywhere.”

Figures said the state would have to budget some money to cover the reimbursement program.

In November, Alabama’s Department of Human Resources was reportedly working on security upgrades for the state’s SNAP system after thousands of users were scammed out of millions of dollars in benefits.

DHR handled the reimbursement of SNAP benefits and returned over $5 million dollars to scamming victims in November. The funding for reimbursements came from the federal government after Congressional authorization in 2023.

But in December, Alabama stopped processing SNAP theft claims after Congress did not reauthorize federal funding used to reimburse the stolen benefits, according to Alabama Daily News.

Low-income families and individuals are harmed the most in the food stamp scams. DHR has said that scammers use several methods to steal SNAP benefits including placing skimmers on top of credit card devices at businesses and phishing calls to drain peoples’ EBT accounts before they can access the money.