WASHINGTON — The US Department of Health and Human Services is investigating whether billions in taxpayer dollars sent to Minnesota social service programs were used to unlawfully “fuel illegal and mass migration,” according to letters obtained by The Post.
Alex Adams, assistant secretary of HHS’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF), fired off letters Monday to Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and a nonprofit that received hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants to provide Head Start programs.
“We are concerned that they might be used to fuel illegal and mass migration,” Adams told The Post, saying that the attempt to track the federal monies was about “accountability for American taxpayers.”
“Right now we’re at the exploratory phase,” he added. “American taxpayers generally fund these programs … We’re trying to get data from them that will help give us confidence that there’s not fraud.”
But, Adams added, his agency has “legitimate reason to think that they’ve been using taxpayer dollars incorrectly,” given a series of recent news reports about fraud in Minnesota social services.
The state raked in more than $690 million for its safety net programs during the final fiscal year of President Joe Biden’s administration, when HHS was run by Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Now, HHS is requesting “a comprehensive list” by Dec. 26 of state entities that got funding from fiscal years 2019 to 2025.
HHS ACF made more than 1,000 federal grants to entities in the Gopher State during those fiscal years totaling $8.6 billion, according to a review of federal spending records.
Between fiscal years 2022 and 2025, HHS ACF shelled out more than $4.5 billion.
At least 130,000 illegal migrants resided in Minnesota as of 2023, an increase of around 40,000 from 2019 and roughly 2% of the state’s population, according to the Pew Research Center.
Adams’ letter noted “public statements from hundreds of Minnesota Department of Human Services employees alleging that clear warnings of fraud were repeatedly disregarded, that whistleblowers faced retaliation, and that widespread misuse of federal funds may have persisted for years under your leadership.”
Those allegations — which are under investigation by the Treasury Department and the Republican-led House Oversight Committee — place the blame on Walz for having enabled a “massive fraud” scheme that involved mainly Somali immigrants bilking more than $1 billion from taxpayers.
“These concerns have been heightened by recent federal prosecutions and additional allegations that substantial portions of federal resources were fraudulently diverted away from the American families they were intended to assist,” added the ACF assistant secretary.
Federal prosecutors in Minnesota have convicted dozens of fraudsters for stealing more than $250 million from taxpayers.
Many had ties to the Somali community and the fake nonprofit Feeding Our Future, which nabbed the federal funds while promising to provide meals to poor children in the state — only to use the cash for lavish cars and luxury real estate holdings.
The ACF programs under review include Parents in Community Action, Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), the Title IV-E Foster Care, Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) and Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA), the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF).
“The Trump Administration has made clear its commitment to rooting out fraud, protecting taxpayer dollars, and ensuring program integrity across all federal benefit programs,” wrote Adams in requesting all administrative data on “grantees, their recipients and subrecipients.”
For LIHEAP, CSBG, SSBG, RCA, RMA, and Title VI-E, the HHS official demanded data from 2019 to 2025.
For CCDF and Parents in Community Actions, which received grants to oversee federal Head Start programs, Adams asked for data from 2022 to 2025.
The data must include “recipient name, address, Social Security Number (if collected), date of birth, A-number (as applicable), and any state identification numbers used for program administration,” the letter noted.
“This information is necessary for ACF to conduct a thorough review of program operations and to assess the extent of any irregularities that may have occurred.”
Reps for Walz’s office and Frey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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