First of all, I was playing off of the parent comment that legality is wholly divorced from morality, a notion that I agree with, rather than commenting on the article.
Second, even though it’s illegal, well, read the article. It seems to me that even the social aid organizations involved were giving a bunch of coy, shitty non-answers to the journalists involved in this story. This is kind of one of those unsettling moments where the institution has lost faith in itself, like when the SCOTUS found the removal of native Americans to be illegal and President Jackson said “Justice Marshall has made his decision, now let him come enforce it” and caused the trail of tears anyway. I doubt we’re going to see any accountability come of this. So, even though it’s illegal on paper, it’s functionally legal; the state is just going to five finger salute the law on this one.