The state of Illinois improperly paid out billions of unemployment tax dollars during the COVID-19 pandemic, with tens of millions going to people who were either dead or in prison, according to a newly released audit.

The Illinois auditor general on Wednesday published a report that showed how the state agency that distributes unemployment benefits issued ‘overpayments’ to the tune of $5.2 billion in fraudulent or excessive claims from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2022. The report is the fullest accounting yet of the large-scale fraud and overpayments that occurred in Illinois during the pandemic.

Of the $5.2 billion, the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) overpaid by about $2 billion for regular unemployment insurance and by $3.2 billion for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) put in place following the outbreak of COVID.

Overall, $2.8 billion has been classified as identity theft – money not considered recoverable since it can’t be collected from the identity theft victim. According to the audit, only about a 10th of the total $5.2 billion has been recovered.

Unemployment surged in Illinois, as it did in the rest of the country, at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 after Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued stay-at-home orders in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Businesses were forced to cut back their operations, if not shut down, leaving many Illinois residents out of work and creating an unprecedented level of demand for unemployment insurance.

‘IDES was not prepared to respond to the needs created by the pandemic,’ the report states. ‘IDES did not have a plan for responding to recessions and potential surges in claims.’

In such an environment, the state loosened certain safeguards to meet the demand but also opened the door to increased fraud.

‘Several of IDES’ defenses against fraud could not handle the exponential increase in claims,’ according to the audit. ‘Beginning in March 2020, IDES suspended some routine identity cross-matches performed on all regular UI [unemployment insurance] claims filed because the cross-matches required time to run and constricted the processing system severely. These cross-matches were temporarily suspended and/or processed offline. This allowed IDES to better handle the increase in claims processing traffic; however, this left the unemployment programs more susceptible to fraud.’

Perhaps most strikingly, IDES sent tens of millions of dollars to jailed and dead people through both regular unemployment insurance and the PUA program. Overall, auditors found that 3,448 people who were incarcerated received 92,811 payments totaling $40.5 million while 10,527 payments totaling $6 million were given to 481 deceased individuals.

The report noted all the payment figures could be ‘understated’ since they’re just estimates and auditors are still trying to account for all the fraudulent payments.

Following the audit’s release, lawmakers are calling for accountability into Illinois’ handling of unemployment payments during the pandemic.

‘This audit has made it crystal clear that the administration’s management of the unemployment system during COVID was an unmitigated disaster of historic proportions,’ Illinois state Sen. Chapin Rose, a Republican, said in a statement. ‘It’s clear that the agency failed to follow its own safety protocols, and, according to the audit, is apparently still refusing to follow common-sense guidance from the feds. All the while, the agency completely dropped the ball on the one thing it said it was focused on, which was getting unemployment benefits in a timely matter to the people who desperately needed them.’

In response to the audit, IDES in part blamed the Trump administration and its implementation of a ‘poorly designed and brand-new unemployment insurance program’ for Illinois to manage with federal guidance often changing.

‘Because the federal program did not require the routine and necessary crossmatching identity controls incorporated within the state’s regular unemployment insurance system, the likelihood that overpayments and fraud recovery efforts nationwide would be negatively impacted is unsurprising,’ an IDES spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘Federal testimony consistently outlines that implementing and expediting new federal programs will continue to challenge states, particularly as a result of an inability of the federal budgeting model to adapt to quickly changing economic situations.’

According to the audit, IDES delayed implementing fraud prevention tools suggested by the U.S. Labor Department.

‘IDES chose to not utilize the Integrity Data Hub tools [recommended by the Labor Department in May 2020] because other IT-related projects were deemed to be of greater urgency during the pandemic,’ the report states. ‘IDES began utilizing the Integrity Data Hub tools in September 2021.’

Auditors also found that claimants with missing or hijacked payments experienced significant delays in getting their payments reissued because of an inadequate process that IDES had in place for addressing such issues. According to the report, for example, it took the agency an average of 198 days to reissue hijacked payments from regular unemployment insurance and 445 days for hijacked PUA payments.

‘The people of Illinois should be disgusted at how badly their money was handled and how little was done to account for the outright theft and gross incompetence,’ said Rose. ‘The people who were supposed to serve as stewards of their resources completely failed them, and their ineptitude served to embolden and help criminals to abuse the system and steal benefits.’

The auditor general outlined several recommendations for IDES to improve its operations. One recommendation was to develop a plan that addresses lessons learned during the pandemic to prepare for future periods of quick and intense spikes in unemployment claims.

The House this week took a small step toward building an artificial intelligence regulatory framework by advancing a bill that asks the government to study AI accountability and report back in 2025.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved the AI Accountability Act Thursday, setting up the bill for a possible vote on the House floor in the fall after members return from the August break.

The bill would have the Commerce Department examine how accountability measures are being incorporated into AI systems used in communications networks and ‘electromagnetic spectrum sharing applications’ and look at ways to mitigate risks in these systems.

It also asks Commerce to assess how these accountability measures might help ‘prove that artificial intelligence systems are trustworthy.’ In 18 months, Commerce would have to make recommendations on these accountability assessment systems.

It’s a slow-moving bill affecting only one federal department that may or may not reach the House floor. But it’s still one of the more promising efforts made in the House this year to start getting a regulatory handle on AI.

More than halfway through a year that has had several calls for broad AI regulation, the House hasn’t passed a stand-alone bill on AI. The closest the House has come is passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes language calling on the Pentagon to assess its AI vulnerabilities, though it also encourages aggressive use of AI to bolster U.S. national security.

The Senate has gotten about as far. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., this week hosted a third AI listening session for senators but has said these sessions would continue into the fall. The Biden administration has responded with voluntary AI standards with some companies but has also stopped short of comprehensive regulations and says Congress will need to act.

For those asking for quick action to regulate AI, Congress isn’t moving nearly as fast as it should.

‘While it is encouraging to see a piece of AI-related legislation make it out of a congressional committee, the pace of our legislative efforts must accelerate to match the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence we’ve seen in the past year,’ Jake Denton, a Heritage Foundation Tech Policy Center research associate, told Fox News Digital.

‘We can’t spend years debating the best path forward for this technology,’ he added. ‘To ensure the safe and ethical deployment of AI, Congress must significantly expedite the legislative process and craft robust laws that safeguard the American people. Delays in establishing clear guidelines will only leave an opening for Silicon Valley to potentially misuse this powerful technology.’

This week’s consideration of the AI Accountability Act, offered by Rep. Josh Harder, D-Calif., showed just how early in the process Congress is when it comes to AI regulation.

During debate, Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., offered an amendment aimed at making sure the Commerce Department has a full understanding of what people mean when they say they want ‘trustworthy’ AI systems in place. 

Obernolte’s amendment to the bill would have officials examine ‘how the term ‘trustworthy’ is used and defined in the context of artificial intelligence,’ and the relationship between that word and ‘other terms such as ‘responsible’ and ‘human-centric.’

‘Congress is in the process of thinking about what a regulatory framework for AI might look like, but along the way, we have to determine how we’re going to investigate AI, to investigate whether or not it’s accountable, it’s responsible and it’s safe for consumers,’ Obernolte said.

A federal court ruling this week that threatens to shut down the Biden administration’s cornerstone of its post-Title 42 border strategy is raising new fears from both DHS officials and critics that it may spark a new surge at the southern border just as numbers have started to drop.

Judge Jon S. Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California blocked the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule Tuesday in response to a lawsuit from a coalition of left-wing immigration groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The rule bars migrants from claiming asylum if they have crossed the southern border illegally and failed to claim asylum in a country through which they have already passed.

The rule was part of a carrot-and-stick approach that saw the rule combined with a stiffening of Title 8 penalties and a significantly expanded use of legal pathways. The administration has been allowing up to 1,450 migrants a day into the U.S. via the CBP One app and another 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans each month in via a separate parole program.

The administration said the strategy was working, pointing to a 70% decrease between the highs before the end of Title 42 on May 11 and immediately after. Recently, June’s border numbers showed a sharp drop from over 200,000 in May to over 144,000 at a time when numbers typically increase.

‘Our approach to managing the borders securely and humanely even within our fundamentally broken immigration system is working,’ DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. 

‘Unlawful entries between ports of entry along the southwest border have consistently decreased by more than half compared to the peak before the end of Title 42.

‘Under President Biden’s leadership, we have led the largest expansion of lawful, safe and orderly pathways for people to seek humanitarian relief under our laws. At the same time, imposing tougher consequences on those who instead resort to the ruthless smuggling organizations that prey on the most vulnerable.’

But the combination strategy has upset both conservatives and liberals, Republicans arguing the administration is abusing parole and shuffling otherwise illegal migrants in through a quasi-legal process they call a ‘smoke screen.’ Immigration activists argue the administration is illegally restricting the right of foreign nationals from across the globe to claim asylum in the U.S.

‘The ruling is a victory, but each day the Biden administration prolongs the fight over its illegal ban, many people fleeing persecution and seeking safe harbor for their families are instead left in grave danger,’ Katrina Eiland, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said a statement after the ruling.

Now, with that central asylum rule torpedoed, it leads to fears there may be a reversal in the downward trend at the border.

DHS said in its filing to the court that, if the rule is shot down, it ‘anticipates a return to elevated encounter levels that would place significant strain on DHS components, border communities, and interior cities.’

The LA Times reported a top DHS official had warned in a filing in June that there were over 100,000 migrants waiting in northern Mexico who appeared to be ‘waiting to see whether the strengthened consequences associated with the rule’s implementation are real.’

The Biden administration’s critics on the right were similarly dejected about the potential for a future surge. Dan Stein, president of the hawkish Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) warned the ruling ‘will serve as an invitation for people to further abuse our asylum process.’

With Title 42 gone and no mechanism in place to promptly expel even some of the people who enter between ports of entry, a new surge of people crossing illegally could well exceed records set earlier this year.

An element of that concern could be seen in Mayorkas’ statement in response to the ruling. He addressed migrants directly and stressed that, pending the appeal, the rule was still in place and ‘does not limit our ability to deliver consequences for unlawful entry.’

‘Do not believe the lies of smugglers,’ Mayorkas said. ‘Those who fail to use one of the many lawful pathways we have expanded will be presumed ineligible for asylum and, if they do not have a basis to remain, will be subject to prompt removal, a minimum five-year bar on admission and potential criminal prosecution for unlawful reentry.

‘We encourage migrants to ignore the lies of smugglers and use lawful, safe and orderly pathways that have been expanded under the Biden administration.’
 

FIRST ON FOX: He passed on running for the White House, but popular Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu will team up Friday with nearly the entire field of GOP presidential candidates at a major cattle call in Iowa.

Sununu is traveling to Des Moines, where he will attend the Republican Party of Iowa’s 2023 Lincoln Dinner, which is the state party’s top annual fundraising gala. Word of Sununu’s travels was shared first with Fox News on Tuesday.

All but one of the more than a dozen Republican White House candidates — including former President Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, and entrepreneur and political commentator Vivek Ramasamy — will speak at the dinner in the state whose caucuses kick off the GOP presidential nominating calendar. The only candidate not attending is former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is concentrating his second White House bid in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP schedule, and South Carolina, which votes third.

Sununu, who has indicated he will likely make an endorsement ahead of next year’s New Hampshire primary, said in a Fox News Digital interview that one of the reasons he is attending the Iowa GOP dinner is ‘it’s just a great opportunity to see.’

‘I’m kind of looking at these candidates, not just in terms of what they say and their policies. I really believe right now it’s about who’s got the personality. Who has the style. Who gets people excited. It’s not just what they say but what you see and kind of the tone that they deliver and how they’ll do that with all the other candidates around them for the first time is actually quite fascinating,’ Sununu explained.

Pointing to the GOP presidential primary debates, which kick off Aug. 23 with a Fox News-hosted showdown in Milwaukee, the governor highlighted, ‘I think this is a little bit of a precursor to the debates maybe. They’re not debating, but how are they going to handle themselves against each other? I think it’s a little bit of a curiosity factor… who’s going to really be able to give the punch and take the punch, and give it back to Trump.’

Sununu is attending the dinner as a guest of Run GenZ, a non-profit group that says it is focused on ’empowering and mentoring conservative trailblazers from Generation Z to pursue leadership opportunities, including public office that allow them to work toward a more constitutionally-focused government.’ The governor was last in Iowa a year ago when he attended a Run GenZ Summer Summit.

‘I know a lot of other folks who are out there, and I’m looking forward to catching up with them and giving them the New Hampshire perspective on things,’ Sununu shared. He also emphasized that when it comes to the GOP presidential nomination race, ‘Iowa and New Hampshire kind of lead the charge in the conversation.’

When asked if he will use Friday’s dinner as a screen test for a likely endorsement, Sununu said, ‘The screen test, if you will, is when they come on the campaign trail with me. They come to some of my Super 603 Days, or I go to events with them and I kind of take them around. I’ll be doing a lot of that this fall with many of the candidates.

‘The best screen test is when they’re with me and my constituents and how they handle it,’ the governor spotlighted. ‘They have to earn their stripes with me on my home turf.’

Sununu, who announced in early June that he would pass on a White House campaign, and last week announced that he would not run next year for what would have been an unprecedented fifth two-year term as New Hampshire governor, has long been a vocal GOP critic of the former president. The dinner will bring Sununu and Trump under the same roof at the same time.

‘I have no problem going up and saying hello if I have the opportunity,’ Sununu said, ‘I appreciate the service he gave to the country, the four years he gave. We just need to move on. It’s not personal.’

He added that, ‘I’m always polite. I’m always willing to shake somebody’s hand and look them in the eye and try and try to encourage them to get out of the race… clear the field for the next generation.’

Sununu also reiterated that the large GOP field of rivals to Trump needs to winnow down by the end of the year, ahead of the first nominating contests, in order to prevent the former president – who currently enjoys a commanding lead in the latest Republican primary polls – from easily capturing the nomination.

When asked if he will try to help narrow the field, Sununu answered ‘I absolutely will… I’m never shy about what I think should happen or where I think the party should go.’

‘If you’re not in the first or second debate, I think that’s probably a good sign that it’s not going to happen. So that’s probably going to be the first filter,’ Sununu said. ‘I think as you get into the November and December timeframe, if other candidates just aren’t going anywhere still, then I have no problem having polite conversations behind the scenes — I don’t want to embarrass anybody. But I think a lot of folks will be having those conversations, by the way, not just me.’

He also emphasized that ‘at some point the pressure has to be brought to bear.’ No candidate had the ‘courage’ to do that in 2016, as Trump conquered a crowd field of rivals, Sununu said. 

‘We took it for granted in ’16 and tried to go around Trump.’

EXCLUSIVE: The Biden administration is blocking key federal funding earmarked under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 for schools with hunting and archery programs.

According to federal guidance circulated among hunting education groups and shared with Fox News Digital, the Department of Education determined that, under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) passed last year, school hunting and archery classes are precluded from receiving federal funding. The interpretation could impact millions of American children enrolled in such programs.

‘It’s a negative for children. As a former educator of 30-plus years, I was always trying to find a way to engage students,’ Tommy Floyd, the president of the National Archery in the Schools Program, told Fox News Digital in an interview. ‘In many communities, it’s a shooting sport, and the skills from shooting sports, that help young people grow to be responsible adults. They also benefit from relationships with role models.’

‘You’ve got every fish and wildlife agency out there working so hard to utilize every scrap of funding, not only for the safety and hunter education, but for the general understanding of why stewardship is so important when it comes to natural resources,’ he continued. ‘Any guidance where it’s even considered a ‘maybe’ or a prohibition for shooting sports is a huge negative.’

According to Floyd, his organization boasts 1.3 million students from nearly 9,000 schools across 49 states who are enrolled in archery courses. Some of those schools have already canceled plans to include archery or hunting education courses in their curriculum due to the Education Department guidance.

In June 2022, the BSCA was passed with large majorities in the House and Senate before President Biden signed it into law. The push to pass the bill — which broadly seeks to promote ‘safer, more inclusive and positive’ school environments, according to the Education Department — came after mass shootings at a grocery market in Buffalo, New York, and a school in Uvalde, Texas.

The legislation included an amendment to an ESEA subsection listing prohibited uses for federal school funding. That amendment prohibits ESEA funds from helping provide any person with a dangerous weapon or to provide ‘training in the use of a dangerous weapon.’

However, in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona earlier this month, Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., expressed concern that the agency is misinterpreting the provision which they said was included in the BSCA last year to withhold education funds for programs training school resource officers, not for hunting and archery classes. School resource officer training was funded under a separate provision.

‘We were alarmed to learn recently that the Department of Education has misinterpreted the BCSA to require the defending of certain longstanding educational and enrichment programs — specifically, archery and hunter education classes — for thousands of children, who rely on these programs to develop life skills, learn firearm safety and build self-esteem,’ Cornyn and Tillis wrote to Cardona.

‘The Department mistakenly believes that the BSCA precludes funding these enrichment programs,’ they continued. ‘Such an interpretation contradicts congressional intent and the text of the BSCA.’

The GOP lawmakers noted in the letter, which was shared with Fox News Digital, that they have heard complaints from schools with funding for shooting sport courses withheld. They added that hunting and archery programs fall ‘well within’ the scope of activities to support safe and healthy students which the ESEA explicitly funds.

Overall, the ESEA is the primary source of federal aid for elementary and secondary education across the country, according to the Congressional Research Service. The BSCA earmarked an additional $1 billion for educational activities under the ESEA.

‘It is ironic that the U.S. Department of Education is actively denying young Americans the chance to educate themselves on basic firearm and hunting safety so that they can go afield knowing how to keep themselves, their friends, and family safe,’ Ben Cassidy, executive vice president for international government and public affairs at Safari Club International (SCI), told Fox News Digital. 

‘At best, the department’s policy appears to be singularly geared to ensure hunters are less safe when handling firearms or bows and, at worst, are leveling a direct attack on hunters’ ability to pass down hunting to the newest generations,’ he continued. ‘SCI and our membership will be eagerly awaiting the Education Department’s response to the letter from Senators Cornyn and Tillis, and we won’t hesitate to take further action to protect hunters’ rights.’

In addition, the National Shooting Sports Foundation blasted the Education Department’s interpretation of the BSCA, saying it was part of the administration’s attacks on the Second Amendment. 

The group said that, while it took a neutral stance on the BSCA, it has become ‘increasingly concerned’ by the Biden administration’s implementation of the law.

‘The Department of Education and Secretary Cardona are blatantly misconstruing the law to withhold funding from schools that choose to teach beneficial courses like hunter safety and archery,’ Lawrence Keane, the NSSF’s senior vice president, told Fox News Digital. 

‘Congress must hold Secretary Cardona and the department accountable for violating the letter and spirit of the law to unilaterally deny America’s students access to these valuable programs as part of the Administration’s continued attacks on the Second Amendment,’ Keane added.

‘Stopping hunter education courses that teach safe and responsible firearm handling makes our communities less, not more, safe and diminishes our ability to pass our nation’s cherished hunting and recreational shooting sports traditions on to the next generation,’ he said.

Both the SCI and NSSF, meanwhile, have been outspoken in their opposition to recent Biden administration actions targeting hunting more broadly.

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service unveiled new prohibitions on the type of equipment hunters are allowed to use on federal refuges. Keane said at the time that the rules were the latest example of the agency ‘creating rules that punish hunters,’ and Cassidy added it would prevent Americans from hunting on public lands.

The Education Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Maine will procure at least 3,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind turbines by 2040 under a bill signed Thursday by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, enough to power about half of the state’s electricity load.

Incentives to ensure wind power developers steer clear of lucrative lobster fishing grounds are included in the law, which puts Maine on a path to catch up with other states that already have offshore wind projects. The law sets a timeline for requests for offshore proposals, as well as standards for port development and construction jobs.

Unlike other projects in the region, the Gulf of Maine wind turbines would showcase floating platform technology because the water is too deep for turbines to be anchored to the ocean floor. State officials hope companies will utilize technology from the University of Maine, which has been pioneering precast floating turbines and has tested prototypes off the coast.

‘Offshore wind, done responsibly, offers Maine the opportunity to secure abundant clean energy, stable energy prices, good-paying jobs and a healthier environment for future generations,’ Mills said in a statement.

The timeline calls for the federal lease sales to be completed next year and for the state to release requests for proposals to operate the offshore wind turbines in early 2026.

‘The clear message to the clean energy industry is that Maine is ready to lead, come work with us,’ said Habib Dagher, director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management gave the green light earlier this month for New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm to begin construction and previously approved projects under construction off Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.

State Sen. Mark Lawrence, the bill’s sponsor, thanked his colleagues for agreeing to a compromise after the governor vetoed an earlier version over concerns that labor provisions would have excluded many Maine workers. ‘This bill will mean jobs, lower and more stable energy prices while combating climate change at the same time,’ he said.

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