(The Hill) – Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Thursday said the Trump administration is planning to have all Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries reapply for the program due to alleged fraud.
The secretary said after receiving data on SNAP recipients from 29 red states that “186,000 deceased men and women and children in this country are receiving a check.”
“Can you imagine when we get our hands on the blue state data what we’re going to find?” she asked during a Thursday appearance on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”
“It’s going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program, have everyone reapply for their benefit, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable, and they can’t survive without it,” she added.
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Every state has a periodic recertification process that requires SNAP or food stamp recipients to update their whereabouts and earnings, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Most municipalities require updated data every twelve to six months.
“Secretary Rollins wants to ensure the fraud, waste, and incessant abuse of SNAP ends,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. “Rates of fraud were only previously assumed, and President Trump is doing something about it. Using standard recertification processes for households is a part of that work. As well as ongoing analysis of State data, further regulatory work, and improved collaboration with States. ”
Earlier this month, food stamps were threatened amid the government shutdown as the Trump administration argued against using contingency funds to fuel the welfare program.
Families and individuals are expected to receive benefits in full by Monday, Rollins said on Thursday.
More than 41 million Americans rely on the benefits to buy groceries, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
However, Rollins told Newsmax that 120 Americans have been arrested for committing SNAP fraud and on Thursday told CNN the program was “corrupt.”
“These are the things that we’re uncovering that, for years, no one has really ever dug into because the feds didn’t have the system in place to do it. But we do now,” the secretary told Newsmax.
“The president has made this a priority,” she added. “We will fix this program.”
