(The Center Square) – Officials in the Trump administration are calling widespread welfare fraud in Minnesota the largest welfare fraud scheme in the nation’s history.
The claim was made during a recent interview by Stephen Miller, who serves as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser.
“We believe that the Somali fraud operation in Minnesota is the single-greatest theft of taxpayer dollars through welfare fraud in American history,” Miller said.
He added that investigators have “only scratched the very top of the surface.”
Independent and federal investigations are ongoing after billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded fraud schemes were revealed over the past few months, as extensively reported on by The Center Square, with claims the fraud could range from $9 billion to $20 billion in Minnesota alone.
According to Miller, those fraudulent practices included falsely claiming children had autism to obtain benefits, enrolling individuals in food assistance programs who were never eligible or enrolled, and “engaging in massive fraud, lying, theft, and grift on a scale we’ve never seen before in American history.”
“We believe that what we are going to uncover is going to shock the American people,” Miller said.
Miller said the total financial impact will likely exceed previously-reported figures, stating that federal records showing that 75% of the Somali population in Minnesota is on welfare is likely an “undercount” of their true “financial burden.”
“The total tab for this is going to be far beyond the numbers we’ve already seen reported,” he said, also pointing some blame at the Democrat-run state government in Minnesota. “We believe the state government is fully complicit in this scheme.”
This is part of ongoing concerns from Republicans both on fraud in Minnesota and the use of taxpayer-funded welfare programs by immigrants – both legal and illegal.
A recent study by KFF, a nonprofit organization focused on health policy research, found that federal policy changes are having a real impact on participation in public assistance programs by immigrants.
It reported that 36% of immigrants without legal status reported stopping participation in welfare programs, while 42% said they avoided applying. The study also found 11% of legal immigrants reported leaving a public assistance program.
Republicans have been consistently labeling the Minnesota fraud “one of the biggest fraud schemes in American history,” even connecting the fraud investigations and the widespread riots in the Twin Cities, which first broke out over the seemingly unconnected enhanced enforcement of federal immigration law by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“Minnesota is a criminal cover up of the massive financial fraud that has gone on,” Prescient Donald Trump said in January.
Since the fraud story first broke a few months ago, many arrests have been made and federal investigations remain ongoing. Congress has also turned its attention to the issue, probing everything from welfare fraud to the financials of Somalia-born U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota.
In January, the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance held a hearing on the Minnesota fraud scandal investigation.
During that hearing, both Democrats and Republicans acknowledged that fraud is widespread throughout government welfare programs. Yet, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said that the federal fraud investigations in Minnesota were just a “pretext” for the surge federal agents to the Twin Cities.
“Fraud is not headquartered in one state, for one municipality, much less one ethnic, racial or religious community,” Raskin said. “But, President Trump couldn’t resist the temptation to use fraud in Minnesota as an occasion to mobilize the power of the federal government to bully and intimidate first and second generation Somali Americans who live in that state.”
