MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A surge of federal officers in Minnesota follows new allegations of fraud by day care centers run by Somali residents.
President Donald Trump has previously linked his administration’s immigration crackdown against Minnesota’s large Somali community to a series of fraud cases involving government programs in which most of the defendants have roots in the east African country.
Surge in federal officers
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel both announced an increase in operations in Minnesota this week. The move comes after a right-wing influencer posted a video Friday claiming he had found that day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had committed up to $100 million in fraud.
Tikki Brown, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families, said at Monday news conference that state regulators took the influencer's allegations seriously.
Noem posted on social media that officers were “conducting a massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud.” Patel said the intent was to “dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.”
Minnesota has been under the spotlight for years for Medicaid fraud, including a massive $300 million pandemic fraud case involving the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. Prosecutors said it was the country’s largest COVID-19-related fraud scam and that defendants exploited a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food for children.
In 2022, during President Joe Biden’s administration, 47 people were charged. The number of defendants has grown to 78 throughout the ongoing investigation.
So far, 57 people have been convicted, either because they pleaded guilty or lost at trial.
Most of the defendants are of Somali descent.
Numerous other fraud cases are being investigated, including new allegations focused on child care centers.
In news interviews and press releases over the summer, prosecutor Joe Thompson estimated the total loss from all fraud cases could exceed $1 billion. Earlier this month, a federal prosecutor alleged that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen.
Trump's immigration enforcement in Minnesota has focused on the Somali community in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, which is the largest in the country.
Trump labeled Minnesota Somalis as “garbage” and said he didn’t want them in the U.S.
About 84,000 of the 260,000 Somalis in the U.S. live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The overwhelming majority are U.S. citizens. Almost 58% were born in the U.S and 87% of the foreign-born are naturalized citizens.
Among those running schemes to get funds for child nutrition, housing services and autism programs, 82 of the 92 defendants are Somali Americans, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, has said fraud will not be tolerated and his administration “will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.”
The fraud could be a major issue in the 2026 gubernatorial race as Walz seeks a third term.
Walz has said an audit due by late January should give a better picture of the extent of the fraud but allowed that the $1 billion estimate could be accurate. He said his administration is taking aggressive action to prevent additional fraud. He has long defended how his administration responded.
Minnesota’s most prominent Somali American, Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, has urged people not to blame an entire community for the actions of a relative few.