SAUNDERS: Yes, The New York Times wrote a story on social services fraud by immigrants

WASHINGTON — Somali immigrants living in Minnesota effectively stole more than $1 billion in taxpayer money over the last five years, The New York Times reported Sunday.

In what White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called “a new bombshell report from The New York Times,” the Gray Lady reported on what law enforcement cited as fraud taking “root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.”

Leavitt’s remarks tracked a November social media post in which Trump wrote, “Minnesota, under Governor Waltz [misspelled], is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity. I am, as President of the United States, hereby terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota. Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!”

Did Trump exaggerate? You know it. But as usual, there was an important kernel of truth in his words.

The federal Department of Justice — not Gov. Tim Walz, who has bragged about “putting people in jail” — has charged 77 individuals in a fraud scheme involving Feeding Our Future, for what “has been identified as the largest Covid-19 fraud scheme in the country.” And 59 people have been convicted.

“Greedy people and businesses have learned how to exploit our programs,” noted James Clark, the Minnesota Department of Human Services Inspector General, The Times reported. “Fraud is a business model.”

So how did they do it? As Washington wrestled to confront an unknown — the COVID epidemic — criminals saw opportunity. They lied about housing. They lied about autism. They used precious tax dollars on luxury cars, houses and real estate.

Macalester College professor Adhmed Samatar, who is a leading expert on Somali studies, offered that Somalis who immigrated to the United States were raised in a culture where stealing from their country’s corrupt government was “widespread,” the New York Times reported.

Of course, that doesn’t mean most Somali immigrants — or other members of other immigrant groups — are criminals. But when they are fraudsters, they can be protected by public officials’ fear of being branded racist.

Walz, who was former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, blithely dismissed Trump’s criticism of fraud in Minnesota as “demonizing the Somali community” on “Meet the Press.”

An X account claiming to represent some 480 Minnesota Department of Human Services Employees objected: “We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistle-blowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports.”

A group of government workers going after a Democratic governor — that doesn’t happen every day.

Ditto the sort of plain talk heard from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as she defended Trump’s decision to curb what they see as the abuse of Temporary Protected Status for immigrants. TPS, Noem argued, “was never meant to be an asylum program.”

(That’s why it’s called “temporary.”)

Again, I don’t like Trump’s language. I wish he voiced more empathy for the plight of America’s immigrants. I don’t like the personal insults he reserves for Walz, even if I am not a Walz fan. And I don’t like it when Trump calls Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., “garbage,” as he did during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, because, for all her wrong-headed political thinking, the Somali-born congresswoman is a force.

But I really don’t like the theft of $1 billion. And I don’t like it when the state workers who want to stop the theft are betrayed by a machine that serves, not the people, but itself.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.