Immigration nonprofits fair game for investigations, says new House task force leader Brandon Gill

Nonprofits that abuse the government for political gain may soon find themselves in the investigative crosshairs of a newly formed House task force, says Texas GOP Rep. Brandon Gill, who will lead the panel under the House Oversight Committee.

The six-month Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses will examine illegal DEI policies, misuse of immigration and social welfare programs that defraud taxpayers, and efforts by foreign actors and dark money groups to suppress free speech. 

"You do not have the right to run an organization that takes tax dollars that engages in illegal activity or engages in domestic unrest or engages oftentimes in political activity, whether it's nonprofits or other sorts of entities that are taking government money," Gill, the task force chairman, told Just The News exclusively this week.

The freshman lawmaker was appointed to the chairmanship post by House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican.  

Gill argues that Congress has the responsibility to examine the issues of abuse and fraud and withhold funds from groups found to be in violation.

"We have to ask ourselves as elected representatives if it makes sense to take your hard-earned tax money and put it in the pockets of NGOs or other entities that are working against you and against American interests, and the answer is obviously no," said Gill, who also said his task will focus on defending constitutional rights against institutional abuses.

"So that's a big part of going after fraud and going after waste and abuse as well."

Gill and Comer took quick oversight action almost immediately after the task force was launched – requesting documents on alleged fraud in Ohio’s Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services program. 

Ohio's HCBS Medicaid waiver program provides such services as personal care, homemaking and chores to allow Medicaid recipients to live at home instead of in nursing facilities. Recent reporting exposed alleged widespread fraud, including improper or fake billing totaling potentially over $1 billion. 

Gill says that while fraud happens across the country, red states such as Ohio have been more willing to examine and investigate. 

"Most Republicans would agree with me that if there is fraud in a red state, we want to go after that just as aggressively as we would in a blue state," he said. "But the fact is that far more often than not, this fraud is taking place in states that Democrats control, whether it's California or New York or Minnesota or many other states."

Gill has taken particular interest in examining organizations and politicians who used their charitable status for political benefit.

"Those are the areas where we have found, like we did in Minnesota, that elected representatives kind of made a deal with fraudsters, that you can defraud the federal government or the state government, and we're going to look the other way, and we want you to vote for us," he told Just The News, 

"That was kind of the deal that elected representatives, Democrats, made in Minnesota. I think you see that in other areas where, essentially, the left is weaponizing the federal purse in order to pursue their own political gain and to attack Republicans, and that's something that we're going after aggressively."

In particular, recent fraud scandals in Minnesota have drawn intense scrutiny of the state's Democratic leadership.

Federal prosecutors estimate that fraud in social services programs – including Medicaid, child care, housing stabilization, and COVID-era nutrition initiatives like Feeding Our Future—could total up to $9 billion. 

High-profile cases include a $250 million scheme in which fraudsters submitted fake meal claims, leading to convictions such as a 41.5-year sentence for a key figure. 

Minnesota's Democratic Gov. Tim Walz faced heavy criticism for alleged lax oversight and slow response, contributing to his decision not to seek reelection. 

Critics, including Republicans, argue his administration fostered a “culture of tolerance” for fraud, while Democrats counter that they took the issue seriously, pursued investigations, and that GOP actions are politically motivated or tied to broader immigration enforcement, according to nytimes.com and cbsnews.com. 

The scandal has become a liability for other Democrats, such as Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in the 2026 Senate race, amid ongoing congressional hearings and audits.

Another issue Gill and members of Congress are probing is foreign interference through nonprofits. 

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., talked about the work the House Ways and Means Committee is doing as the overseers of the IRS and tax policy. 

That committee has been investigating the issue of foreign interference through foreign money funneled into U.S. nonprofits to undermine and disrupt the country. Malliotakis says liberal trans-rights activist group Code Pink is the latest example. 

"We saw those college campus protests that were anti-Semitic being fueled by foreign money, and we've exposed a lot of it, and we've turned that over to the IRS for consideration," she said. 

"Here we have Code Pink. They've met with the Communist Cuba regime. They've met with the Communist Chinese regime. In fact, a lot of their money comes from Communist China. They've met with the Iranian regime, with the leadership of Hamas at one point. These are people who are actively working against the United States of America and trying to undermine us."

Malliotakis said that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will be appearing before the House Ways and Means Committee soon to talk about these issues, and she intends to make the 501c3 status of such groups a priority in her questioning, as they are effectively subsidized by taxpayers.

Other Republican members of the task force include Reps. Jim Jordan, of Ohio; Andy Biggs, of Arizona; Michael Cloud, of Texas; Byron Donalds, of Florida; and Brian Jack, of Georgia.