(The Center Square) – The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee convened on Tuesday to consider the Minnesota Somali fraud scandal as a reason to reform immigration laws.
The child care service fraud in Minnesota cost American taxpayers an estimated $9 billion or more, with many of the individuals involved in the fraud being U.S. citizens of Somali descent or non-US citizen Somali nationals. Due to the Somali connection, the immigration process was called into question with suggestions to prevent immigrants from entering the U.S. to commit fraud.
Hearing witness Matt O’Brien, deputy executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, testified that when someone lacks lawful status, identity theft, false claims to U.S. citizenship, Social Security fraud, tax fraud, and more crimes are likely to follow.
“A false statement on an immigration form often leads to identity theft, illegal employment, fraudulent tax filings, and illicit financial activity,” O’Brien said. “If you are here illegally, you have to commit fraud in order to accomplish anything in the United States, because you can’t work without appropriate documentation.”
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., was among many Democrats who claimed the hearing was more focused on racially targeting Somali nationals to prevent Somali immigration and refugee acceptance.
“Republicans want to take specific, well-documented cases,” Padilla said, “cases that are already being investigated and prosecuted, and stretch them into a narrative of widespread abuse by immigrant communities more broadly. And we know where this leads; it becomes justification for targeting and expelling entire communities.”
“It’s not racism to identify fraud where it exists,” U.S. Rep. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said.
The U.S. asylum system was also brought into question due to a lack of resources to verify applicants’ claims to verify identities and backgrounds.
“There are over 1.5 million cases pending at USCIS, and that backlog encourages more fraud, because aliens know that they can stay here for years before their cases get decided. And if they obtain U.S. visas by fraud, they usually go on to become American citizens, all on the foundations of an original lie. And once citizens, they can petition to bring in their relatives,” said Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow of the Border Security and Immigration Center.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas pointed out the Somali fraud problem in Minnesota was not confined to childcare centers, with Minnesota Somali immigrants reciving welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and cash assistance benefits more than non-Somali households.
“Minnesota’s welfare system has been treated like an open ATM and the taxpayers are the ones getting robbed,” Cruz said.
Professor Eric Schwartz, chairman of Global Policy Area at Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, argued that Somali presence in the United States is helping America.
“It is not unusual for immigrant populations to have a high degree of assistance early in their – after their arrival, but we are already seeing statistics that the net benefit economically of Somali presence in the United States far outweighs the cost,” Schwartz said.
Regarding suggestions to prevent immigration fraud and protect American citizens in the future, the overall agreement was that if an immigration candidate’s identity and background cannot be verified, the candidate should not be granted a visa.
“Where verification is impossible, denial must be the default,” O’Brien said.
