Executive order

Executive Order 14395

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose and Policy. American taxpayers fund a vast benefits system for citizens in need that includes housing, food, medical care, cash assistance, and more. States administer these federally funded programs, and some States have embraced loopholes that avoid individual eligibility validation, allow self-certification of eligibility, and expand eligibility far beyond what the Congress intended. Worse, despite accepting Federal funds, some States have refused to institute basic fraud controls such as providing enrollee information to the Federal Government that would allow it to verify eligibility. As a result, illegal aliens, criminals, foreign gangs, bureaucrats, State and local officials, non-governmental organizations, and ineligible providers exploit these programs ‑- which are intended to provide a safety net to lawfully eligible Americans — with ease. This exploitation and lack of controls to prevent it have resulted in widespread fraud, waste, and abuse at the expense of the American taxpayers who pay for and utilize these programs, contributing substantially to the national debt.

Self-dealing political actors use such public benefits programs to solidify control over their communities and our political systems. Due to lax immigration policy and immigration fraud, certain public officials admit into our country, and provide sanctuary from Federal immigration laws to, migrant populations who are likely to rely on means-tested, public assistance programs (welfare) and increase the political support and power of the public officials providing the benefits. This increased support incentivizes public officials to maximize the flow of welfare to these communities and makes public officials who do so more powerful. Many of these public officials then fail to police these programs — and in some cases, willfully turn a blind eye to fraud, waste, and abuse within them — to ensure that welfare flows to these migrants. Due to insufficient election integrity measures, some migrants who are not eligible to vote do so anyway, with the same public officials permitting widespread ballot harvesting schemes that compromise our election integrity and help these public officials remain in power.

The staggering fraud and waste in Minnesota alone is a case in point. Federal prosecutors in the State estimate that Medicaid fraud in recent years could total in the billions. Nearly 9 percent of the roughly $866 million spent on food stamps in Minnesota each year is estimated to be spent in error. The non-profit Feeding our Future engineered a scam that stole nearly $250 million intended to feed needy children in Minnesota by opening fake meal sites and submitting fraudulent claims for millions of meals that were never served. One of the defendants in this scam was also charged with submitting false claims to an autism services program that was subject to widespread fraud. Hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal childcare funding to Minnesota were stolen by an organized ring of Somali immigrants and others who used the stolen money to purchase cars, property, and luxury travel, and sent the funds overseas. The Federal Government is investigating allegations that some of the United States taxpayer dollars subject to fraud in Minnesota were even funneled to one of Africa’s most heinous terror groups. All of this was ignored or undetected by State officials. There is also strong reason to believe that similar problems exist in other States, including California, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Colorado. In fact, Minnesota and 20 other States filed a lawsuit to block the Federal Government from even conducting a basic review to determine whether their enrollees are in fact eligible for taxpayer-funded benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Such extensive, undetected fraud could only exist in a system that ignores it.