{"id":19590,"date":"2026-03-04T16:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T16:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/tim-walz-accuses-the-trump-administration-of-singling-out-minnesota-amid-fraud-allegations-immigration-crackdown\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T16:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T16:37:11","slug":"tim-walz-accuses-the-trump-administration-of-singling-out-minnesota-amid-fraud-allegations-immigration-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/tim-walz-accuses-the-trump-administration-of-singling-out-minnesota-amid-fraud-allegations-immigration-crackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Walz accuses the Trump administration of singling out Minnesota amid fraud allegations, immigration crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told lawmakers Wednesday that his state has been terrorized by the Trump administration over mass welfare fraud allegations, pointing to the killing of U.S. citizens in the midst of an immigration enforcement surge around Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me be clear: In Minnesota, if you defraud public programs, if you steal taxpayer money, we\u2019ll find you, we\u2019ll prosecute you, we\u2019ll convict you, and we\u2019ll throw you in jail,\u201d the Democrat said in his opening remarks at a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.<\/p>\n

But, he added, \u201cthe people of Minnesota have been singled out and targeted for political retribution at an unparalleled scale, including blocking Medicaid reimbursements to our state just last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walz, the 2024 nominee for vice president, is fending off accusations from congressional Republicans that he didn\u2019t do enough to prevent a scandal that has embroiled his state. Prosecutors have charged more than 90 people with defrauding the government, and two individuals connected to the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future were convicted<\/u><\/a> of stealing federal nutrition funds in March.<\/p>\n

The revelations have led the Trump administration to take drastic, punitive measures, such as prompting<\/u><\/a> the Department of Health and Human Services to freeze its child care funding and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to cancel hundreds<\/u><\/a> of millions in Medicaid money.<\/p>\n

Walz, alongside Minnesota\u2019s Democratic attorney general, Keith Ellison, have been hauled to Capitol Hill to testify before the committee about the scandal \u2014 and also to respond to an interim report committee Republicans released<\/u><\/a> early Wednesday morning alleging that Walz and Ellison \u201cknew about the fraud in federal programs administered by the State of Minnesota much earlier than they told the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) asked why Walz did not order the stop or suspend welfare program payments, despite warnings of fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to stop payments to feed children until we have the proof that things happen,\u201d Walz said.<\/p>\n

Comer objected: \u201cYou didn\u2019t stop payments because you didn\u2019t want to rock the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his opening statement, Ellison maintained that his office has pursued fraud convictions aggressively where it has the jurisdiction to do so.<\/p>\n

Republicans have honed in on the welfare scandal as an opportunity to disparage the state\u2019s Democratic leadership, but it also has fueled anti-immigrant rhetoric within the GOP \u2014 specifically against Minnesota\u2019s large Somali community. At one point, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, who is also a member of the Oversight panel, asked Walz whether he knew how many of those indicted have been Somali-American.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t investigate or prosecute people based on ethnicity, religion\u2014,\u201d Walz said, before Jordan interrupted him.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither do I, we shouldn\u2019t do that,\u201d Jordan responded. \u201c85 percent of the people indicted were Somali-American, a key voting bloc, and I think that\u2019s what drove this whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House quickly amplified video of the exchange<\/u><\/a> on X.<\/p>\n

Democrats on the committee are using the opportunity to criticize the administration\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda. The panel\u2019s ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, pointed to a large poster of Renee Good\u2019s bloody driver seat, after she was shot by ICE agents in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis violence does not make us safer,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cIt does not address fraud, waste, and abuse. It doesn’t help families with healthcare \u2026 And it certainly as we\u2019re continuing to discuss, is not preventing the kind of fraud that Republicans are discussing here today.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told lawmakers Wednesday that his state has been terrorized by the Trump administration over mass welfare fraud allegations, pointing to the killing of U.S. citizens in the midst of an immigration enforcement surge around Minneapolis. \u201cLet me be clear: In Minnesota, if you defraud public programs, if you steal taxpayer money, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}