GOP lawmaker moves to block welfare recipients from sending money overseas: 'Abuse ends now'

FIRST ON FOX: A newly introduced Senate bill from Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno would prohibit individuals receiving public assistance from sending money overseas through remittance transfers, a move aimed at ensuring taxpayer-funded benefits are spent inside the United States and not exported abroad.

The legislation, titled the "Stopping Transfers of Public Funds Abroad Act," would require anyone applying for or receiving federal public assistance to sign a written declaration stating they will not send money through remittance transfers while receiving benefits.

Under the proposal, anyone who violates that declaration would face a civil fine of up to $100,000.

The bill directs federal agencies that administer public assistance programs to enforce the restriction during both initial applications and reapplications for benefits. Recipients would be required to certify, under penalty of perjury, that they are not transferring funds via remittance services while receiving aid.

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"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 told Fox News Digital. "If an individual has enough cash to send money overseas, they have no business taking welfare benefits from hardworking Americans. The abuse ends now."

Remittances, or money transfers sent by individuals — typically immigrants — in the United States to recipients in foreign countries — typically through banks, wire services, mobile apps, or money service businesses — have drawn increased scrutiny in recent years and further amplified after the Minnesota fraud scandal, primarily in the Somali community, came to light nationally.

In many cases, remittances are funded through ordinary wages. However, critics say there is little visibility into whether some transfers are financed with taxpayer-funded benefits, particularly cash-based assistance programs. Because funds from public assistance and personal income are often deposited into the same accounts, tracing the source of remittance money can be difficult, raising concerns among lawmakers about oversight and accountability.

"Importantly, no single remittance transfer is hostile," senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation Ammon Blair wrote in a Fox News Digital opinion piece earlier this month titled, "Mass immigration is economic warfare and few Americans understand why."

"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."

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Blair continued, "But modern conflict is not defined by individual intent. It is defined by aggregate effects. When mass migration and financial flows reach industrial scale and persist over time, they can impose real strategic pressures on host nations, regardless of motivation."

Blair explained that the United States is the world’s largest source of outbound remittances and experiences annual outflows estimated between $80 billion and $90 billion based on World Bank and Federal Reserve analyses of IMF balance-of-payments data.

Several countries, according to Blair, gather a significant share of their national income from remittances, including Somalia, where remittances reached approximately 25% of the GDP in 2024. 

"At this scale, remittances are no longer incidental household transfers; they become macroeconomic pillars," Blair wrote. 

"Governments that rely so heavily on these inflows face reduced incentives to facilitate the return of their citizens, including those unlawfully present in the United States, since large-scale repatriation would disrupt a critical revenue stream while reintroducing unemployment, fiscal strain and political pressure at home."