The Trump administration will require all food stamp recipients to reapply for benefits as part of its effort to curb fraud, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said this week.
Rollins told NewsMax’s Rob Schmitt in a Nov. 13 interview that she plans to “have everyone reapply for their benefits” to ensure aid is only going to those who “are vulnerable and they can’t survive without it.”
She said federal officials have uncovered roughly 186,000 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments made to deceased individuals, and about 500,000 people are receiving duplicate payments. She also noted that spending under former President Joe Biden surged by nearly 40%.
The findings stem from a request earlier this year for states to submit their SNAP data, Rollins explained. Only 29 states — “mostly the red states,” she noted — provided datasets covering February, March, and April.
“Here’s the really stunning thing: this is just data from those 29 mostly red states. Can you imagine when we get our hands on the blue state data, what we’re going to find?” she said. “It’s going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program.”
Rollins also cited cases of extreme abuse, including one person who received six different EBT cards in six different states. So far, she said, 120 people have been arrested for SNAP fraud.
“There’s a lot of people already sitting in jail,” she said, “but I think we’re just at the very tip of the iceberg with what we’re going to find.”
She did not say when the reapplication mandate would begin for the roughly 42 million Americans currently receiving monthly benefits. Recipients typically complete a brief recertification every six to 12 months, according to Politico.
According to FOX Business, federal data show that more than 226,000 fraudulent benefit claims and 691,000 unauthorized transactions have been approved, many of which are tied to card-skimming or electronic theft schemes. The outlet reported that stolen benefits cost the government more than $102 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.
Rollins said earlier this month on “Fox & Friends Weekend” that investigators have found “thousands and thousands of illegal uses” of EBT cards and that the administration has already removed roughly 700,000 people from SNAP rolls.
FOX Business reported that SNAP spending reached record highs under Biden — $128 billion in 2021 and $127 billion in 2022 — amid pandemic-era expansions. Last year, the program reportedly cost $99.8 billion, with average monthly benefits of $187 per participant.
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