Tag: welfare

USDA Imposes New Verification Rules on Food Stamps to Tackle Exploitation by Illegals

The Trump administration is taking a hardline stance against illegal immigrants exploiting food stamps, issuing strict new guidance to state agencies to ramp up identity and immigration verification.

On Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Acting Deputy Under Secretary John Walk directed states running the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to tighten the screws on fraud.

The Department of Agriculture’s new rules demand states use more reliable documents to confirm identity, crack down on fake Social Security numbers, and fully utilize the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system—provided free by DHS. States are also urged to adopt stricter identification processes and conduct more in-person interviews.

A memo from Acting Deputy Under Secretary Walk noted, “By law, only United States citizens and certain lawfully present aliens may receive SNAP benefits. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-193) established that “aliens within the Nation’s borders not depend on public resources to meet their needs.” SNAP is not and has never been available to illegal aliens.”

“To ensure that tax dollars do not fund SNAP benefits to illegal aliens or other ineligible aliens, State agencies should carefully examine their identity and immigration status verification practices and make necessary enhancements.”

Keep reading

California’s Broke Medicaid Program Has Been Spending on … Homeless Housing

Medi-Cal, the State of California’s version of Medicaid, has been spending on extraneous programs such as housing while running up a deficit so extreme that the state has had to borrow over $6 billion to save it.

As Breitbart News reported last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration had to seek $6 billion in loans to keep the program from collapsing, partly due to the cost of covering illegal aliens, which he did last year.

Now, CalMatters.org reveals that the federal government is cracking down on Medi-Cal and other Medicaid providers that have been using money to support “rent assistance” and “medically tailored meals”:

In 2022, California made sweeping changes to its Medi-Cal program that reimagined what health care could look like for some of the state’s poorest and sickest residents by covering services from housing to healthy food. But the future of that program, known as CalAIM, could be at risk under the Trump administration.

…

The moves align with a narrower vision of Medicaid espoused by newly confirmed Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services head Dr. Mehmet Oz, who said during his swearing-in ceremony that Medicaid spending was crowding out spending on education and other services in states with the federal government “paying most of the bill.”

“This one really bothers me. There are states who are using Medicaid — Medicaid dollars for people who are vulnerable — for services that are not medical,” Oz said.

President Joe Biden allowed California and other states to “experiment” with Medicaid funding — and California spent itself into near-insolvency. The Trump administration is cracking down, insisting that Medicaid spending be restricted to medical expenses — not items like housing for indigent patients.

Keep reading

New York’s Boom In Home Health Aides Is Just Another Medicaid Racket

Not long ago, I wrote in The Federalist about “labor unions’ racket,” as it relates to corruption within one Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local. But the “racket” doesn’t end there. It extends to the people who finance it: federal taxpayers like you and me.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Consider the following quote:

I’m telling you right now, when you look on TikTok and you see ads of young people saying, “Guess what, you can make $37 an hour by sitting home with your Grandma. You know, here’s how you sign up,” it has become a racket.

The speaker is none other than New York’s Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, describing her own state’s Medicaid program. And the reason why she has suddenly changed her rhetoric and refuses to fix the problem has much to do with the union corruption I wrote about recently.

Union Dues Skimming

As with most things in politics, keen observers should follow the money. The New York Post recently criticized Hochul for reneging on her plan to attack the “racket” she described last year, with the Post alleging that she “switch[ed] sides with an eye on her re-election run” in 2026. 

The outlet explained that “the health care worker unions — above all, 1199[SEIU] — are a ginormous lobbying power.” The push to expand home health workers, including family members giving care, which Hochul previously criticized as a “racket,” has “morphed into a mass unionization drive,” as the Post noted.

Explosion of New Aides

That “mass unionization drive” comes as home health jobs within New York state have soared. The Empire Center, a conservative think tank, reviewed the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From 2023 to 2024, home health employment grew by 57,000 jobs in New York alone. That’s a 10 percent increase in home health employment within one year, with New York accounting for one-fifth of all the new home health aides nationwide.

On both an absolute and relative basis, the data reveals New York’s absurdly high number of home health aides. The Empire State has more than three times as many home health aides (623,000) as fast food workers (183,810), and more than four times as many aides as waiters and waitresses (140,890). On a relative basis, New York has by far the most home health aides per 1,000 senior citizens, more than twice as many as the national average and 24 percent higher than the next-highest state, California.

As one observer told Newsweek last year, the home health aide program started with good intentions by “allow[ing] family members and friends to get paid for providing home health assistance to loved ones using Medicaid and Medicare dollars. The problem is now you have individuals taking advantage of a pretty liberal, open-ended process for determining who qualifies.” 

Keep reading

California Governor Signs $2.8 Billion Medi-Cal Bailout to Cover Soaring Costs, Including for Illegal Immigrants

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed emergency legislation that will close a $2.8 billion shortfall in the state’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, ensuring continued health care coverage through June for approximately 15 million low-income residents, including hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

Newsom signed Assembly Bill 100 into law on April 14, according to a statement from his office. The measure is part of a broader response to an estimated $6.2 billion budget gap in Medi-Cal, the state’s sprawling public health care program.

The shortfall followed California’s expansion of full-scope Medi-Cal benefits to all income-eligible adults in 2024, regardless of immigration status—a move hailed by progressives and criticized by conservatives.

The Medi-Cal expansion—implemented in January 2024 under a 2022 law—made California the first state in the nation to offer free, comprehensive health care to all low-income adults regardless of immigration status. The state initially projected that the policy would cost $2.7 billion annually and cover about 764,000 residents without lawful immigration status. Actual program costs have exceeded expectations, contributing to California’s budget crisis, according to state officials.

California state Rep. Carl DeMaio, a Republican, has called for an audit of Medi-Cal spending, saying that California cannot afford to provide free health care to illegal immigrants.

“This puts the health coverage for poor people, children, the neediest among us, at risk,” DiMaio told reporters, according to a video that he shared on social media. “Why? Because we’ve given away the store to noncitizens. We’ve given illegal immigrants free health care at taxpayers’ expense.”

Keep reading

DOGE says illegal immigrants with criminal or terrorist records received public benefits under Biden

The Department of Government Efficiency revealed on Sunday that illegal immigrants with criminal or terrorist records received public benefits under former President Biden.

“Under the Biden administration, it was routine for Border Patrol to admit aliens into the United States with no legal status and minimal screening. So far, CBP identified a subset of 6.3k individuals paroled into the United States since 2023 on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center watchlist or with criminal records. These paroles have since been terminated with immediate effect,” read a DOGE post on X.

“Despite having no other legal status, paroled aliens are able to file for work authorization and receive social security numbers,” the agency added.

DOGE found that of that group of 6,300 illegal immigrants, “905 collecting Medicaid (including 4 on the terrorist watch list); $276k was paid out – 41 collecting Unemployment Insurance, receiving $42k in benefits; 22 received federal student loans totaling $280k; 409 received {net} tax refunds (2024 only) for $751k; several (final number TBD) received SNAP (food stamp) benefits.”

Keep reading

RFK Jr. Says He’s Working with DOGE to Tackle Medicaid Fraud: “We’re in a Very Good Position Now to Identify that and to Eliminate It”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday that he is working with Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut the waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid. 

“We think we’re going to be able to identify it and eliminate it while, incidentally, protecting the Medicaid—while protecting the Medicaid program and improving services to our poorest Americans,” RFK Jr. told Fox’s Martha MacCallum on Thursday following a high-stakes Cabinet meeting.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, during the meeting, Kennedy announced that the federal government will identify the root cause of America’s spiraling autism crisis by September, following an unprecedented research initiative ordered by President Donald Trump.

He later revealed to MaCaullum, “We have DOGE working with us, and they’ve been really extraordinary about finding fraud in all of the agencies.”

This comes as Democrats and Republicans spar over the budget resolution that passed in the House earlier Thursday. Democrats in the House accused Republicans of trying to cut Medicaid benefits, which House Speaker Mike Johnson says is a “lie,” pointing to the roughly $50 billion lost each year to Medicaid fraud.

Last week, it was revealed by a DOGE official that illegal aliens and even violent illegal aliens are accessing government benefits like Medicaid and also voting.

“We found in the benefit programs that every benefit program that was being accessed by these people, DOGE executive and founder of Valor Equity Partners, Antonio Gracias, said. “1.3 million of them are on Medicaid right now, today.”

Keep reading

DOGE Official Confirms What We’ve Known All Along: Illegal Immigrants Are on Medicaid and Voting

Democrats love to portray themselves as the compassionate ones. They just want to help people, especially the poor and downtrodden. When you ask them about illegal immigration, they will tell you that these are just poor people looking for a better life for themselves and their families. That’s why they were perfectly okay with a wide-open southern border and letting millions of people into the country. It was all about compassion. However, as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to dig into the twisted story of America’s finances, we are finding out that the compassion ruse is just that, another Democrat party scheme.

Antonio Gracias is a DOGE official. He was recently interviewed on the “All In” podcast and told the real story on illegal immigration during the Biden administration that Democrats told us was absolutely not happening. Gracias said that potentially millions of illegal immigrants who came into the country during the Biden administration have valid Social Security numbers. What Gracias describes is nothing short of an organized racket to import as many people as possible. My colleague Nick Arama has also covered this extensively as well. Gracias laid out the whole thing, saying:

“So now you’re in the country with some quasi-legal status, you’re waiting for your court date, while you’re waiting for your court date — six years is the average by the way, it could be longer than that — you can fill out an asylum application, so without an interview, just an application … once that application is in, you can file another form, a 765 [form] to get work authorization, once you get that, you get a 766 which is the authorization and we automatically send you a Social Security card in the mail. No interview, that is the majority of the growth you see in these numbers. [Emphasis added]”

Keep reading

Report: Medicaid Double Payments Cost Taxpayers $4.3 Billion In Three Years

Irecently analyzed in these pages why claims that the House Republican budget will “cut” Medicaid have no merit, not least because Medicaid will continue to grow by over $1 trillion in the coming decade. But if that weren’t enough reason for lawmakers to accelerate efforts to reform a broken program, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis provided another:

Health insurers got double-paid by the Medicaid system for the coverage of hundreds of thousands of patients across the country, costing taxpayers billions of dollars in extra payments. The insurers, which are paid by state and federal governments to cover low-income Medicaid recipients, collected at least $4.3 billion over three years for patients who were enrolled — and paid for — in other states.

As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up. Is this what Democrats want to defend when they say they want to “protect Medicaid” — inefficiency bordering on fraud within one of the federal government’s largest programs?

Keep reading

DOGE Executive Antonio Gracias Reveals 1.3 Million Illegals Are Accessing Medicaid – Thousands Are Voting

DOGE executive Antonio Gracias, the founder of Valor Equity Partners, joined the All In podcast on X.

During their discussion, Antonio revealed shocking information on how illegal aliens and even violent illegal aliens are accessing government benefits and even voting.

Antonio Gracias:  We mapped it through to the benefit programs. We found in the benefit programs that every benefit program that was being accessed by these people, 1.3 million of them are on Medicaid right now, today. And by the way, it’s just ramping. It’s just starting. Just to give you a point. And then out of curiosity, I woke up at 2: 00 in the morning. I couldn’t sleep. My mind was running on this. I sent the individual note saying, Hey, guys, let’s just look at the public voter rolls who we find in some friendly states. And we looked at the voter rolls, and we found that thousands of them were registered to vote in a handful of states. And then we went in further with those friendly states and found that many of those people had actually voted. It was shocking to us.

If I hadn’t seen it in my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. And so now the question we’re asking ourselves is, what do we do? We refer to some to prosecution that’s ongoing right now. We’re thinking through how to do it. And the reality is they have various kinds of status, and it’s a very detailed analysis, legally, they’re working through right now about how to deal with it.

Jason Calacanis:  So thousands of those people registered to vote?

Antonio Gracias:  Yes.

Jason Calacanis:  In the election.

Antonio Gracias:  Which is a federal crime, by the way…

Keep reading

CNN’s Abby Phillip Lies About Elon Musk and Social Security, Gets Corrected by Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

During a segment on CNN about the state’s Supreme Court election this week, Abby Phillip straight up lied, claiming that Elon Musk and DOGE were targeting Social Security.

Former Wisconsin governor, Republican Scott Walker, was on the show, and he jumped in to correct her in real time, pointing out that Musk specifically said he was NOT targeting Social Security.

Phillip was basically just parroting false Democrat talking points, as so many people in the media do on a regular basis.

FOX News reports:

CNN host spars with former Wisconsin governor on the claim Musk said he would cut Social Security

CNN’s Abby Phillip and former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker got into a heated argument over her claim Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk talked about cutting Social Security and Medicaid benefits at a recent town hall event.

During a segment on “CNN NewsNight” Tuesday night, Phillip referenced Musk holding an event in Green Bay, Wisconsin, over the weekend ahead of a closely watched state Supreme Court election. She claimed that at the town hall he “talked about cutting Medicaid and Social Security through DOGE.”

“Actually, he never talked about that. He explicitly said in Green Bay he would not cut Social Security. That’s exactly what he said,” Walker pushed back.

“Well, he talked at his rallies,” Phillip said.

“No, no. Other people said that,” Walker argued. “But I was there. I watched him. He did not say he was going to cut Medicaid.”

Keep reading