New Senate Bill Would Fine Welfare Recipients Who Send Money Abroad

When Your Benefits Head to Mogadishu Instead of Main Street

Here’s a question that should’ve been asked decades ago: If you’re receiving government assistance because you can’t make ends meet, why are you wiring money to another country?

Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno isn’t interested in dancing around this one. His newly introduced legislation, the Stopping Transfers of Public Funds Abroad Act, cuts straight to the point. If you’re on welfare, you don’t send remittances overseas. Period. Break that rule, and you’re looking at a civil fine that could hit $100,000.

The bill requires anyone applying for federal public assistance to sign a written declaration promising they won’t transfer funds abroad while collecting benefits. They’d certify this under penalty of perjury, both when they first apply and every time they reapply. Federal agencies administering these programs would enforce the restriction directly.

“For decades, Washington’s failed welfare program rewarded dependency while enabling fraudsters and criminals to exploit the system to take advantage of American taxpayers,” Moreno said. “If an individual has enough cash to send money overseas, they have no business taking welfare benefits from hardworking Americans. The abuse ends now.”

That last line hits different when you consider what’s been happening in Minnesota.

The Somali Community Scandal That Changed Everything

The Minnesota fraud case became the spark that lit this fire. What unfolded there wasn’t just garden variety welfare fraud. We’re talking about systematic exploitation on a scale that made even seasoned investigators blink twice. The scandal got so bad that Governor Tim Walz announced he wouldn’t seek reelection and would never run for office again. Think about that. A sitting governor essentially ending his political career over the fallout.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been investigating whether some of those fraudulently obtained funds made their way to al-Shabab, the terrorist organization. When welfare fraud potentially finances terrorism, you’ve moved beyond bureaucratic incompetence into something far darker.

Now, here’s where this gets complicated, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Remittances themselves aren’t inherently problematic. Millions of immigrants send money back home to support families through legitimate means, using wages they’ve earned. That’s their money, their choice. Nobody’s arguing against that.

The Visibility Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About

But cash is fungible. That’s the technical term for something policy wonks understand but rarely explain clearly. It means money mixes together. When your paycheck and your welfare benefits both land in the same checking account, how do you prove which dollars went where? You can’t, really.

Critics of the current system point to exactly this lack of visibility. Cash-based assistance programs become especially difficult to track once the money enters someone’s personal account. Did that $500 wire transfer to Somalia come from wages or from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program? The honest answer is we often don’t know.

Ammon Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, wrote something worth considering in a recent piece. “No single remittance transfer is hostile,” he noted. “No individual immigrant constitutes an act of aggression. Many immigrants are seeking better lives for themselves and their families, and remittances often provide support to vulnerable communities abroad.”

He’s right about that. Most people sending money home are doing exactly what their grandparents did, supporting family members who didn’t make the journey. That’s human nature.

But Blair continued with a point that makes some people uncomfortable: “Modern conflict is not defined by individual intent. It is defined by aggregate effects. When mass migration and financial flows reach industrial scale…”

He’s talking about systems, not individuals. And systems can be exploited even when most participants mean no harm.

The Hardworking Taxpayer Argument

There’s another angle here that deserves attention. American workers fund these assistance programs through their taxes. They do so with the understanding that their money helps fellow Americans who’ve hit hard times. It’s supposed to be a temporary safety net, not a permanent subsidy that gets exported overseas.

When someone collects benefits meant for basic needs in America but has enough disposable income to wire funds internationally, something doesn’t add up. Either they don’t actually need the assistance, or they’re receiving more than necessary. Both scenarios represent a failure of the system.

The enforcement mechanism Moreno proposes is straightforward. Sign a declaration. Follow the rules. If you violate the agreement, face consequences that actually matter. A $100,000 fine isn’t a slap on the wrist. It’s designed to make people think twice.

Will this solve every problem in the welfare system? Of course not. The system’s been broken for so long that no single bill could fix it entirely. But it addresses a specific, measurable abuse that’s been documented and, frankly, ignored for too long.

What Happens Next

The bill faces the usual legislative gauntlet. It’ll need support beyond just conservative Republicans who instinctively favor welfare reform. Some Democrats might surprise people and back it, especially those from districts where constituents are tired of seeing their tax dollars misused.

Opposition will come, predictably, from advocacy groups who’ll frame this as targeting immigrants. That’s the easy argument. The harder conversation involves acknowledging that protecting vulnerable immigrant communities and preventing welfare fraud aren’t mutually exclusive goals.

You can support legal immigration and demand accountability in public assistance programs. These aren’t contradictory positions, no matter how often people pretend they are.

Moreno’s bill says something simple: American welfare is for Americans, to be spent in America, on American needs. If that sounds radical, maybe we’ve drifted further from common sense than we realized.

Related: Graham to Johnson: You Crossed the Line and I Won’t Forget It