Homeland Security Discovers Fraud, Targets Immigrants Not Wall Street
DHS, in what Newsweek dubs its 'largest immigration operation ever' in Minnesota, is mobilizing against alleged daycare fraud, predominantly targeting Somali immigrants. While fraud, if proven, is certainly an issue, one might question the allocation of such monumental resources when the headlines are regularly filled with revelations of banking executives and corporate fraudsters who routinely
cost taxpayers billions without facing equivalent, highly-publicized dragnet operations. It certainly appears that some financial crimes are deemed more 'American' than others, or at least less suitable for a dramatic show of state power. This 'largest ever' operation, heralded for its scope against allegedly smaller-scale offenses, stands in stark contrast to the historical lack of similarly
scaled domestic operations against, say, the architects of the 2008 financial crisis, or the ongoing corporate tax dodgers. DHS's enthusiasm for policing the vulnerable, while often turning a blind eye to larger white-collar crimes committed with impunity, truly makes one wonder about their definition of 'homeland security'.