The Maine Department of Health and Human Services has stopped paying Gateway Community Services in Portland, which provides services to immigrants.
Gateway Community Services was issued a violation notice following an investigation of “credible fraud allegations.”
James Comer, a GOP Rep, recently identified Gateway as the potential target of an investigation into welfare fraud.
The Maine Department of Health and Human Services halted MaineCare payments Tuesday to a Portland-based company that provides services to immigrants, claiming it had billed incorrectly for interpreting and trying to recover more than $1,000,000.
The Department of Justice sent a letter of violation to Gateway Community Services on Tuesday, along with an announcement that the company would suspend payments as it investigated “credible fraud allegations.” The unit of the Department reviewed 15,000 claims submitted to Gateway from March 2021 to December 2022, and is attempting to recover nearly $1 million.
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The letter came a few days after U.S. Rep. James Comer, Kentucky’s top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, wrote to the U.S. Treasury, indicating that Gateway, along with a number of current and ex-employees, were potential targets in a broader investigation into welfare fraud being conducted by this panel.
Comer’s first letter linked Gateway directly to the investigation of the committee, which has been largely focused on Minnesota. The list includes former Gateway employee Deqa Dhalac and founder Abdullahi Ali.
Abdullahi Ali, a Somali immigrant, founded Gateway in 2015.
Gateway Services was founded by Abdullahi Ali, a Somali immigrant, in 2015. He was under scrutiny after he announced his bid to become president of Jubaland in 2024, an autonomous region located in southern Somalia. At the same time, his charity Gateway Services was defrauding state funds of $1 million for services that were not rendered.
Gateway was not just run and staffed by Somali migrants. The agency has also connections with a number prominent Democrats in Maine including Democrat State Sen. Chloe Maxmin and Democrat Strategists Joanne D’Arcangelo, and B.J. McCollister. The latter served as a chief-of-staff to Maine Democrat Senate president Troy Jackson and Joe Biden’s 2020 White House campaign.
