Compassion

Recent revelations of welfare fraud in Minnesota show a pattern that has been seen in other areas, the most notable is the situation at the southern border. It was compassionate kind people, who wanted to help migrants escaping from terror in their homelands, that led the way for their entry into the country. The same compassion was evident in the desire to help homeless, hungry children that opened the door to fraud. Three separate approaches were used. First was to feed the hungry, second to house the homeless and third to treat autistic children. They each followed a similar path, starting small and growing rapidly. Using the autistic scheme as an example, they went to MN Social Services in 2018 asking for funds to help autistic children and they were given $3 million dollars. They then proceeded to expand the need by going mostly to Somali families and paying them $400 to $1,500 to say their child was autistic. In the following years they received $54 million in 2019, $77 million in 2020, $183 in 2021, $280 million in 2022 and $400 million in 2023. The numbers in the other two schemes are similar. People working in social service recognized that this growth represented something suspicious and reported these activities but nothing was done. Many believe the hesitancy was caused by the fear of being called racist which cannot be proven because it is difficult to get to motives. The more acceptable excuse is greed. The point is that schemes like this start with the good intentions of compassionate people.