'What a joke': Kristi Noem's DHS buried in mockery over fraud stunt

The official X account for the Department of Homeland Security posted a video on Monday, showing federal agents canvassing communities in Minnesota looking for more examples of benefits fraud — and they ran into more mockery than they may have expected.

"DHS is on the ground in Minneapolis, going DOOR TO DOOR at suspected fraud sites," said the post. "The American people deserve answers on how their taxpayer money is being used and ARRESTS when abuse is found. Under the leadership of [Secretary Kristi Noem], DHS is working to deliver results."

The announcement relates to a scandal in which a handful of individuals, some of whom are part of the Somali diaspora community in Minneapolis, were accused of fraudulently exploiting $250 million in pandemic relief funding.

In reality, this story is several years old and the Biden administration already investigated and prosecuted the ringleaders of this scheme, but it was thrust back into the national spotlight by a New York Times deep dive at the end of last month — which led to a wave of racially-charged MAGA threats against Somali immigrants.

After the DHS post went up, some MAGA accounts praised the effort — but a number of other people, on both sides of the aisle, roundly mocked the video, calling it a stunt and possibly even a setback to any potential investigation of additional fraud.

"Lol what? Is this how you uncover fraud?" wrote former white nationalist turned conservative Trump skeptic Richard Hanania. "What a joke. Trash internet government."

"The surest way to uncover fraud is to walk in the front door and ask if there's fraud," wrote Joshua Reed Eakle of Project Liberal. "It definitely won't tip anyone off or complicate any active investigation. Legit meme government."

"DHS is literally doing what South Park accused them of," wrote researcher Mark Raymond. "They are making superficial content to compete with a random YouTuber the MAGA base is obsessed with this week."