House GOP bill could trigger self-deportation for Somali refugees amid Minnesota fraud probe

FIRST ON FOX: A House Republican is seeking to tighten the screws on the U.S. immigration system in the wake of multiple investigations into alleged fraud within Minnesota's social services system.

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, introduced a bill on Tuesday that would terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people from Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Somalia.

Immigrants from those countries currently in the U.S. on refugee status would be forced to self-deport within 180 days of the bill's enactment.

"It's important that we ensure that those entering our country are properly vetted, and they clearly have not been properly vetted. So what we are trying to do is ensure that we address this, we stop this," Hunt told Fox News Digital.

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Part of his impetus for introducing the bill now, Hunt said, was the increased scrutiny on Minnesota's Somali community as federal prosecutors investigate what they believe could be billions of dollars of fraud targeting social programs in the Midwestern state.

Federal prosecutors in Minnesota have charged multiple people with stealing more than $240 million from the Federal Child Nutrition Program through the Minnesota-based nonprofit Feeding Our Future.

The probe has since widened to multiple state-run programs being investigated for potential fraud, however.

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Childcare providers receiving state funding, mainly within the Somali community, are also under scrutiny.

Pressure from the growing scandal pushed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to drop his bid for a third term. He said Monday that he did not want to distract from efforts to shield his residents from both fraudsters and people seeking to politicize the situation.

"Every minute that I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can't spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity, and the cynics who want to prey on our differences," Walz said.

Walz previously said his administration has taken steps to crack down on the fraud, but argued federal officials are over-inflating the scope of the damage.

"I mean, looking at Tim Walz's decision not to seek re-election - where there's smoke, there's fire. There certainly is more to come out of this situation," Hunt said. "He was clearly complicit in what was going on. That's why he's not seeking reelection, and so there's a lot of 'there' that's there, and it needs to be exposed, needs to be investigated."

He added, "Making sure that we revoke these TPS designations is the beginning of cleaning up this mess."

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Hunt argued that his bill would help hasten the timeline for President Donald Trump's move to end TPS for foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota.

He added that the wider purpose of the bill was also to block Sharia law from spreading in the U.S., noting it was something he experienced firsthand as a member of the military.

"As somebody that has lived under Sharia law, somebody that has deployed to the Middle East, this is also a broader conversation about keeping people that hate our country out of here," Hunt said. "And so what we're going to do is try to pass legislation that codifies what President Trump is trying to do."

Hunt is currently running for U.S. Senate in Texas.