HHS to Immigrant Sponsors: Pay What You Owe for Immigrants Who Use Medicaid or Face Collection

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has told the sponsors of immigrants that they must repay taxpayers for Medicaid benefits for which the immigrants are ineligible yet received despite the sponsors’ vow of financial support.

Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of Health and Human Services, notified the sponsors by a letter dated December 11 that became public this week.

The crackdown comes as the federal prosecutors arrest and charge Somali fraudsters in Minnesota with bilking taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid, federal housing, and other money.

The Letter

Many Americans mightn’t know it, but federal law requires that those who sponsor immigrants sign an affidavit of support for the immigrant.

The affidavit is “is a contract an individual signs agreeing to use their financial resources to support the intending immigrant named on the affidavit,” the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says:

The individual who signs the affidavit of support becomes the sponsor once the intending immigrant becomes a lawful permanent resident. The sponsor is usually the petitioner who filed an immigrant petition on behalf of the intending immigrant.

An affidavit of support is a legally enforceable contract, and the sponsor’s responsibility usually lasts until the family member or other individual either becomes a U.S. citizen, or is credited with 40 quarters of work (usually 10 years).

The affidavit inquires about the sponsor’s income and financial assets and requires the sponsor to provide support for an immigrant that keeps his income at least 125 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.

In other words, immigrant sponsors are financially responsible for immigrants.

Thus, the letter from O’Neill, who is not, like his predecessor, a mentally-ill man who runs hither and thither at HHS headquarters in a dress and high heels while pretending to be an “admiral.”

“Federal records indicate that, as a sponsor for [redacted’s] immigration to the United States, you agreed to provide financial support so that [redacted] would not be excludable as a public charge who is dependent on government benefits,” the letter begins:

Records indicate that your support obligation commenced [redacted] and that [redacted] has recently been enrolled in Medicaid for at least one month. Pursuant to 8 CFR 213a.4, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is seeking reimbursement for such costs.

After offering the bill, O’Neill wrote “we hereby demand reimbursement” — “we” being HHS, which in turn means American taxpayers.

HHS “will seek reimbursement by all available means,” O’Neill warned, “including, but not limited to, filing a lawsuit to recover such amounts.”

O’Neill helpfully provided the address to which the sponsors can mail a check. The letter did not say whether HHS accepted Visa or Mastercard.

Somali Scandals

As the Daily Mail recounted in its exclusive on the letter, “the crackdown is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s response to mounting evidence of rampant fraud in Minnesota — much of it centered in parts of the state’s Somali community.”

At least 10 letters went to the sponsors of Medicaid recipients, the website reported. That “community” is involved in three major fraud schemes.

In 2022, federal prosecutors charged 47 defendants for defrauding the Covid-era Feeding our Future program of more than $250 million. A jury found the mastermind of that scheme and a codefendant guilty in March of this year. In November, the 77th and 78th defendants were charged in the same fraud conspiracy.

In September, eight defendants were charged with defrauding Medicaid’s housing-stabilization program.

Also in September, prosecutors charged the first defendant in an autism fraud scheme. And today, the Justice Department announced, six more defendants were charged in the autism and housing fraud schemes, while another pleaded guilty.