(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congressman Randy Feenstra, a Republican from Hull, has introduced a bill he says would keep American welfare benefits from being sent out of the country. “To codify what Trump did to ban welfare recipients from sending money abroad. I mean, think about what happened over the last several months, nine billion dollars of fraud in Minnesota. You know, this is our taxpayer dollars,” he says. Feenstra says his “No American Benefits Abroad Act” is being considered by a House committee. He says Democrats in Minnesota are to blame for allowing the fraud.

“And to me it’s different from night and day. I mean, you have liberal progressive running that state in Minnesota and you got true conservatives here in Iowa. I mean, it’s just apples and oranges. And that’s what happens when you have liberal progressives running your state,” Feenstra says. Feenstra is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and has joined chair Jason Smith and Republican members of the committee in sending a letter to the acting I-R-S commissioner Scott Bessent to urge stronger oversight and accountability of the nation’s nonprofit sector.

“If someone has money to send to a foreign country, they should not be on welfare in the first place, and they surely should not be sending in abroad. And that’s what we’re trying to stop,” Feenstra says. Feenstra says he was disturbed along with many Iowans by the headlines of the rampant taxpayer fraud in Minnesota.

The Ways and Means Committee has referred 11 nonprofit to the I-R-S through its investigations of fraud, terrorism ties and foreign influences, which found that stolen funds may have been wired to regions of Somalia with links to an Islamic terrorist group. Feenstra is running for the republican nomination to be governor.