Rosa Flores showed up at WestView Women’s and Family Medical Center in the spring of 2008, poor, uninsured and pregnant with her first child.

A financial counselor at the West Valley City clinic told her how to apply for Baby Your Baby, temporary Medicaid insurance that pays for up to two months of prenatal care.

As an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, the 21-year-old was not eligible. And she didn’t have a Social Security number, which applicants are asked to provide.

Neither barrier posed a problem.

The clinic counselor urged her to claim, “Yes, I’m a legal resident,” recalls Flores, identified by a pseudonym because she risks deportation.

And the Utah Department of Health-authorized Baby Your Baby worker who enrolled her simply provided a nine-digit alternative — which happens to be the Social Security number of a deputy police chief in Maine.

State health officials defend the practice even though many of the numbers they’ve handed out could match the Social Security numbers of people in Maine and New Hampshire. They say they cannot challenge applicants who claim to be legal residents who have lost, forgotten or never owned a Social Security number.

But Utah’s tactic has tripped alarms at the U.S. Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General, which is “looking into it,” said agency spokesman Jon Lasher.

Immigration policy critics, meanwhile, question the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of assuming Baby Your Baby applicants are eligible, which they say leaves the program vulnerable to fraud — the same accusation state authorities have leveled against WestView.

“It sounds like it’s a case of willful blindness on behalf of the people who administer Utah’s program,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

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A need for numbers » Baby Your Baby, funded by state and federal tax dollars, provides care to low-income expectant women while they wait 35 to 45 days for their Medicaid applications to be screened. To obtain the temporary benefits, women need only attest to their income and status as a citizen or legal resident.

Federal law forbids states from requiring proof for Baby Your Baby and other “presumptive eligibility” programs, said Utah Medicaid director Michael Hales.

For Utah applicants without Social Security numbers, the agency has provided nine-digit “program” numbers since 1987, said Hales, who added they’re needed to track claims and speed prenatal benefits to women early in their pregnancies when it matters most.

For years, Hales said, the state added the letter “V” at the end of the program numbers to “avoid conflicts.” The letter was dropped, however, last summer when Medicaid switched computer systems.

Other states use different solutions. Wisconsin issues 10-digit numbers, said Beth Kaplan, a spokeswoman at that state’s Department of Health Services.