A recent increase in the number of federal law enforcement officers operating in Minnesota follows new allegations of fraud involving day care centers run by Somali residents, according to officials familiar with the investigations.
President Donald Trump has previously connected his administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota to a series of fraud cases tied to government assistance programs, many of which have involved defendants with roots in Somalia, ABC7 reports.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel announced this week that federal operations in Minnesota would be expanded.
The announcements followed the release of a video Friday by independent journalist Nick Shirley, who alleged 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 a news conference Monday that state regulators were taking the allegations seriously, ABC7 said.
Noem posted on social media that officers were “conducting a massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud.” Patel said the goal was to “dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.”
Minnesota has faced heightened scrutiny for years over Medicaid fraud, including the roughly $300 million pandemic-era case involving the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. Prosecutors have described it as the largest COVID-19–related fraud scheme in the United States, alleging that defendants exploited a state-administered, federally funded program intended to provide meals for children.
The investigation began during the administration of Joe Biden. In 2022, federal prosecutors charged 47 individuals, a figure that has since grown to 78 as the case has expanded.
To date, 57 defendants have been convicted, either through guilty pleas or trial verdicts. Court records show that most of those charged are of Somali descent, noted ABC7.
Authorities say several additional fraud investigations remain ongoing, including new allegations centered on child care centers.
In interviews and press releases over the summer, federal prosecutor Joe Thompson estimated that total losses across multiple fraud cases in Minnesota could exceed $1 billion. Earlier this month, another federal prosecutor alleged that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funding provided to 14 programs in the state since 2018 may have been misappropriated.
Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota have largely focused on the Somali community in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area, which is the largest such community in the United States. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota, 85 of the 98 defendants charged in cases involving alleged fraud tied to child nutrition, housing assistance, and autism programs are Somali Americans.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi made the arrest announcement on Monday. Bondi said additional prosecutions are expected as the investigations continue.
Her announcement followed the release of a series of videos by Shirley. “[Nick Shirley’s] work has helped show Americans the scale of fraud in Tim Walz’s Minnesota,” Bondi said in an X statement late Monday.
“@TheJusticeDepartment has been investigating this for months. So far, we have charged 98 individuals — 85 of Somali descent — and more than 60 have been found guilty in court,” she continued. “We have more prosecutions coming… BUCKLE UP, LAWMAKERS!”
Bondi went on to describe several of the cases they’d already prosecuted, including the Feeding Our Future scheme and a connected juror bribery case — a situation which, as Bondi noted, was “not unlike what you would see in the corrupt Somali judicial system.”
