The Trump administration’s fraud crackdown is exposing a hard truth: some of the people draining America’s safety net have no right to be here at all. At Wednesday’s SNAP fraud press conference in Cincinnati, Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald of the Justice Department’s Fraud Division walked through a case out of Massachusetts that shows exactly how it works.
“Guzman was a two-time felon and a Dominican national. He is suspected to be unlawfully in the United States,” McDonald said. “Based on the allegations, Guzman stole the identity of a United States citizen to fraudulently obtain” SNAP, Medicaid and Section 8 housing benefits. Charging papers put the totals at $22,402 in SNAP, $98,481.25 in MassHealth benefits and $45,596 in Section 8 housing aid. Prosecutors say he also used the stolen identity to get two state ID cards, a learner’s permit and three driver’s licenses in Massachusetts and Arizona, and that he was convicted of two felonies in Arizona and sentenced under the victim’s name.
McDonald said the case is no outlier. “This is one of the many cases charged this year involving suspected illegal aliens stealing the identities of Americans to then steal from America,” he said. He also highlighted an Ohio indictment of two men accused of running thousands of fake food purchases through Chicago stores with stolen Ohio EBT accounts, a loss of about $29.7 million, and said both were arrested in Chicago Wednesday morning.
The third case was the darkest: a Pennsylvania indictment accusing defendants of grooming and luring intellectually disabled women to live with them to control their Social Security and SNAP benefits. “These cases and allegations reveal the scope of deception, greed, and human exploitation permeating SNAP fraud schemes,” McDonald said. “These are not paperwork crimes.”
The White House drew the line in plain words on Wednesday: “U.S. taxpayer-funded programs are for Americans ONLY. Illegal aliens who have no right to be here in the first place have no business collecting SNAP benefits or any other form of welfare.” Under President Trump, the people stealing Americans’ names and Americans’ benefits are finally being caught and charged.
