Karoline Leavitt delivered a forceful takedown of what she called the “open-borders scam” during a heated exchange in the White House briefing room. Her pushback came after a reporter attempted to frame current asylum issues through the familiar narrative comparing modern refugees to past immigrant generations, a defense implicitly aimed at shielding Minnesota Governor Tim Walz from criticism.
Leavitt countered with a detailed rundown of the large-scale fraud uncovered in Minnesota, highlighting that nearly $1 billion in federal funds was stolen from American taxpayers through a network of bogus nonprofit schemes. According to Leavitt, 86 individuals have been charged, 78 of them Somali refugees—a staggering 91%. Of those, 59 have already been convicted. The flagship scandal involved a fake “feed the children” program that claimed it was serving tens of thousands of meals during the pandemic, despite delivering almost none.
She noted that stolen money was funneled into luxury cars, expensive homes, and overseas real estate in Turkey and Kenya, while another parallel scam involved fabricated homeless-services programs that never took place. Leavitt emphasized that all of this occurred under Democratic leadership in a Democratic-run state, arguing that it exposed systemic failures enabled by lax oversight and permissive immigration policies.
Leavitt concluded by insisting that the administration is taking these abuses seriously, declaring, “This president is not going to put up with it anymore.” Her remarks underscored the White House’s effort to draw a sharp contrast between humanitarian obligations and what officials describe as rampant exploitation of the asylum system.