House GOP bill could trigger self-deportation for Somali refugees amid Minnesota fraud probe
FIRST ON FOX: A House Republican is seeking to tighten the screws on the U.S. immigration system in the wake of multiple investigations into alleged fraud within Minnesota's social services...
By Fox News · Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: A House Republican is seeking to tighten the screws on the U.S. immigration system in the wake of multiple investigations into alleged fraud within Minnesota's social services system. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, introduced a bill on Tuesday that would terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people from Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Somalia. Immigrants from those countries currently in the U.S. on refugee status would be forced to self-deport within 180 days of the bill's enactment. "It's important that we ensure that those entering our country are properly vetted, and they clearly have not been properly vetted. So what we are trying to do is ensure that we address this, we stop this," Hunt told Fox News Digital. MAGNITUDE ‘CANNOT BE OVERSTATED’: FEDS SAY MINNESOTA FRAUD MAY BE MORE THAN $9B Part of his impetus for introducing the bill now, Hunt said, was the increased scrutiny on Minnesota's Somali community as federal prosecutors investigate what they believe could be billions of dollars of fraud targeting social programs in the Midwestern state. Federal prosecutors in Minnesota have charged multiple people with stealing more than $240 million from the Federal Child Nutrition Program through the Minnesota-based nonprofit Feeding Our Future . The probe has since widened to multiple state-run programs being investigated for potential fraud, however. MINNESOTA FRAUD COMMITTEE CHAIR CLAIMS WALZ 'TURNED A BLIND EYE' TO FRAUD WARNINGS FOR YEARS Childcare providers receiving state funding, mainly within the Somali community, are also under scrutiny. Pressure from the growing scandal pushed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to drop his bid for a third term. He said Monday that he did not want to distract from efforts to shield his residents from both fraudsters and people seeking to politicize the situation. "Every minute that I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can't spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals w…