Vice President JD Vance announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration would withhold nearly $260 million in Medicaid funding for the Democrat-controlled Minnesota state government following the state’s massive fraud scandal.

Vance, who was tapped by President Donald Trump to lead the administration’s anti-fraud crackdown during the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, said that Minnesota must prove that it “takes its obligation seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money.” According to Vance, the Trump administration is withholding reimbursements for Medicaid services that Minnesota already paid for out of the state budget.

“What this means is that first of all, the providers on the ground in Minnesota have actually already been paid,” Vance said at a press conference alongside Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “What we’re doing is we’re stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American taxpayer.”

Minnesota state leaders, including Democratic Governor Tim Walz were informed of the Trump administration’s move, according to Oz, who said the federal government will hold the Medicaid payments until Minnesota properly addresses the fraud.

“If Minnesota fails to clean up the systems, the state will rack up $1 billion of deferred payments this year,” Oz said.

Oz assured reporters that the Medicaid funding freeze would not “hurt” Minnesota residents, since the state’s budget has a “rainy-day fund” to cover the lapse in funding.

“If providers and beneficiaries are worried about getting their money and services, please call your governor. These are services the governor has already paid for. We are just not reimbursing the state,” Oz said, adding, “This is not a problem with the people of Minnesota, it’s a problem with the leadership of Minnesota and other states who do not take Medicaid preservation seriously.”

Vance has zeroed in on 14 state programs in Minnesota, which include autism service providers and medical service transports that the administration believes is rife with fraud. The Trump administration is giving Walz 60 days to respond to its letter informing the state government of its freeze on Medicaid funding.

The vice president called out so-called services in Minnesota that have received millions in taxpayer dollars only to make fraudsters rich. Federal prosecutors recently uncovered a massive fraud scheme in Minnesota that has resulted in dozens of convictions so far.

Minnesota’s “Feeding Our Future” program received federal funds and claimed to distribute meals to hungry children during the COVID pandemic but allegedly never did so. The vast majority of those charged in the fraud scheme were of Somali descent.

Vance said on Wednesday that the administration also found that a Minnesota program that was supposed to help kids with autism “has made a number of people rich, not by providing services to needy children, but by allowing fraudsters to take money that ought by right go to American citizens and to American families.”

Dr. Oz said at the White House press conference that the new Trump administration effort would be the “largest anti-fraud effort of its kind” in the history of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Oz said that a fraud scheme in Minnesota pays mothers around $1,000 to falsely enroll their children as autistic and then Medicaid is billed for millions of dollars in “services that were never rendered.”

“These schemes disproportionately involve immigrant communities,” Oz added. “They’re able to organize efforts, and sometimes they don’t understand what’s going on. And ultimately, it diverts resources away from kids who truly have autism.”

Daycare and learning centers linked to Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis area have also come under scrutiny for suspected fraud after independent journalist Nick Shirley posted a 42-minute video in December that showed him visit numerous daycares that have received state funding, but don’t appear to be serving any children.

A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden struck down a key initiative of the Trump administration’s deportation effort Wednesday.

Judge Brian E. Murphy of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that the Trump administration can’t deport illegal immigrants to third countries, which are nations other than their native soil. Instead, federal authorities must attempt to remove the illegal immigrant to their home country or another country approved by an immigration judge, Murphy said in the 81-page ruling.

“It is not fine, nor is it legal,” Murphy wrote of the deportation policy.

“This new policy — which purports to stand in for the protections Congress has mandated — fails to satisfy due process for a raft of reasons, not least of which is that nobody really knows anything about these purported ‘assurances.’ Whom do they cover? What do they cover? Why has the Government deemed them credible? How can anyone even know for certain that they exist? These are basic questions that the Constitution permits a person to ask before the Government takes away their last and only lifeline.”

Murphy ruled that illegal immigrants must have “meaningful notice” before they’re deported to a third country so they have the opportunity to share if they fear persecution or torture there.

“These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this Court affirms these and our nation’s bedrock principle: that no ‘person’ in this country may be ‘deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’” Murphy wrote.

“The simple reality is that nobody knows the merits of any individual class member’s claim because Defendants are withholding the predicate fact: the country of removal,” he wrote.

The Trump administration has shipped off illegal immigrants to countries like Eswatini, Rwanda, Ghana, El Salvador, and South Sudan, as part of the strategy.

The government has 15 days to appeal the order, which exempts border crossers who are to face “expedited removal.”

The Supreme Court previously ruled in June against Murphy’s previous order that prevented the Trump administration from deporting illegal immigrants to third countries. As a result, the Trump administration was able to deport a group of eight illegal immigrants with rap sheets to South Sudan, where none of them held citizenship.

The group of deportees had criminal convictions in the United States and deportation orders, according to the Associated Press.