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Massive fraud has been taking place in the US government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), including benefits being paid to illegal aliens, according to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.
In an interview with Fox News, Rollins described the program as “broken and corrupt” after funding lapsed at the weekend because of the ongoing government shutdown.
Rollins said that 21 states refused to hand over data to the Department of Government Efficiency regarding whether illegal aliens were claiming SNAP benefits fraudulently. Two states sued the USDA.
In hundreds of billions of dollars of spending, thousands of cases of illegal benefit were detected, Rollins added, over a hundred people have been arrested and thousands of dead people were still receiving benefits.
She also linked the massive growth of SNAP under the Biden administration—the program almost doubled in size in 2023—to attempts to “buy the election.”
“It’s time to drastically reform this program,” Rollins said, “so that we can make sure those who are truly needy, truly vulnerable are getting what they need, and the rest of the corruption goes away and we can serve the American taxpayer.”
SNAP covers around 42 million people from low-income households, giving an average of $187.20 per month to be spent on food. The program is administered by the US Department of Agriculture.
SNAP benefits are provided through accounts called EBTs. Beneficiaries spend the food stamps using EBT cards, which are like prepaid credit cards. Benefits are provided on a certain day each month.
“Millions of Americans, as of tomorrow, will no longer receive SNAP,” USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins told a briefing in Washington on Friday. The pause, which came into effect at the weekend, is the first in the program’s history since it was implemented in 1964.
Funding for the program has stalled since the beginning of last month. Democrats have voted against reopening the government on more than a dozen occasions, and Republicans have voted to prevent funding for SNAP while a broader agreement on ending the shutdown is reached.
On Friday, a US district judge ruled that the USDA must use $5 billion in contingency funding to pay for SNAP; although this amount is just over half the $9 billion monthly cost of the program.
In a post on social media following the decision, President Trump said he had instructed lawyers to ask federal courts what could be done to ensure SNAP is funded.
“I do NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT,” Trump wrote.
