Surge in federal officers in Minnesota focuses on alleged fraud at day care centers

MINNEAPOLIS– A wave of federal agents in Minnesota follows new allegations of fraud at day care centers run by Somali residents.

President Donald Trump has already linked his administration’s immigration crackdown on 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.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel both announced increased operations in Minnesota this week. The move comes after a right-wing influencer posted a video Friday claiming he discovered that daycares run by Somali residents in Minneapolis committed up to $100 million in fraud.

Tikki Brown, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families, said in a news conference Monday that state regulators are taking the influencer’s allegations seriously.

Noem posted on social media that agents were “conducting a massive investigation into child custody and other widespread fraud.” Patel said the intent was to “dismantle large-scale fraudulent schemes exploiting federal programs.”

Minnesota has been in 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 nation’s largest COVID-19 scam and that the defendants operated a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food to children.

In 2022, under President Joe Biden’s administration, 47 people have been indicted. The number of accused has risen to 78 during the ongoing investigation.

So far, 57 people have been convicted, either because they pleaded guilty or lost at trial.

Most of the accused are of Somali origin.

Many other fraud cases are under investigation, including new allegations focused on daycares.

In interviews and press releases over the summer, prosecutor Joe Thompson estimated that the total loss from all fraud cases could exceed $1 billion. Earlier this month, a federal prosecutor alleged that at least half of the nearly $18 billion in federal funds that have supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen.

Trump’s immigration measures in Minnesota have focused on the Somali community in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, which is the largest in the country.

Trump called Minnesota’s Somalis “trash” and said he didn’t want them in the United States.

About 84,000 of the 260,000 Somalis living in the United States live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul district. The overwhelming majority are American citizens. Nearly 58% were born in the United States, and 87% of those born abroad are naturalized citizens.

Among those running schemes to obtain 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 in Minnesota.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, said fraud would not be tolerated and his administration “will continue to work with our federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.”

Fraud could be a major issue in the 2026 gubernatorial race as Walz seeks a third term.

Walz said an audit scheduled for late January should give a better idea of ​​the scale of the fraud, but admitted the $1 billion estimate could be accurate. He said his administration was taking aggressive steps to prevent further fraud. He has long defended his administration’s response.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota’s most prominent Somali American, urged people not to blame an entire community for the actions of a few.