The Silver Lining in Minnesota
Yes, the fraudulent abuse of taxpayers has been awful in the Land of 10,000 Daycares, but we now know and can shut it down.
The day after Christmas, a YouTuber named Nick Shirley posted a 42-minute video about daycare fraud in Minnesota. We knew about the Somali Medicaid fraud operation in Minnesota. We didn’t know until last week that many Somalis were also ripping off taxpayers for apparently phony childcare facilities.
Well, some people knew a decade ago and were punished for saying so.
The Somali fraud may reach a total of $9 billion, nearly equal to Somalia’s entire GDP.
🚨 Here is the full 42 minutes of my crew and I exposing Minnesota fraud, this might be my most important work yet. We uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day. Like it and share it around like wildfire! Its time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) December 26, 2025
We ALL… pic.twitter.com/E3Penx2o7a
In short, Shirley and a co-investigator allege that the fraudsters set up daycare operations that took tons of taxpayer money but had no children enrolled. One example was the “Quality Learing [sic] Center,” which claimed 99 kids, though Shirley said it had zero, and yet it received $4 million in taxpayer dollars. Multiply that many times throughout the state, and voila, you have immense fraud. The kicker? The Somalis receiving the fraudulent funds would then lavish gifts on Somali politicians and even foreign terrorists.
For the record, The Washington Post says, “Minnesota state regulators visited the centers within the past 10 months and saw children, according to state officials and records, undermining claims that they are fraudulent businesses.” Nothing to see here; move along.
So, did Democrat Governor Tim Walz have any inkling of what was going on in the state he’s run for nearly seven years, or was he too busy making girls’ facilities safe for boys?
According to a spokesperson, yes, he was aware, and he did his best to address it — which was apparently a colossal failure. “The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action,” the spokesperson said. “He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed.” He also “hired an outside firm to audit payments.”
That ought to qualify Walz for that third term he’s seeking, right? As The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman quips, “Taxpayers must be thrilled to learn that, having paid the Minnesota governor and state employees for years while frauds proliferated, they must now pay even more in the hope that contractors hired by the same government will be able to prevent such scams.”
The Department of Health and Human Services has frozen childcare funding. Deputy Secretary of HHS Jim O'Neill said, “Funds will be released only when states prove they are being spent legitimately.” That sounds like the way it should have been from the beginning.
Moreover, FBI Director Kash Patel posted:
The FBI is aware of recent social media reports in Minnesota. However, even before the public conversation escalated online, the FBI had surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota to dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs. Fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide.
He’ll have plenty of material. For example, back in 2023, the Associated Press reported on $200 billion in COVID fraud, which dwarfs the Minnesota operation.
That’s to say nothing of the expenditure of billions on federal programs that are essentially fraudulent because they produce no discernible benefit. Take Head Start, which has cost $240 billion over the last 60 years — to be sure, a drop in the bucket of overall expenses during that time — yet has had virtually no effect on kids’ learning. On top of that, perhaps a third of enrollees should not have been eligible.
As for the criminal Somalis, Patel says they might be eligible for denaturalization and deportation. That, of course, leads to Leftmedia stories like this one from MS NOW: “Trump’s targeting of Somali Americans is having an effect in Minneapolis.” Trump did recently refer to Somalis as “garbage.”
So, this all seems pretty bad. Where’s the silver lining I noted in my title?
It may seem odd to put it this way, but it’s the discovery of the fraud. For decades, Democrats have pushed constitutionally dubious income redistribution schemes. Those programs invite exactly this kind of fraud because when there is a lot of cash ripe for the taking, people who shouldn’t receive it will find ways to benefit. That’s doubly so for immigrants from cultures like the one in Somalia, which doesn’t see this so much as criminal fraud as justifiably enriching the right tribe.
At the risk of sounding Pollyannaish, discoveries of massive fraud could yield better immigration policies and more robust oversight of programs. DOGE saw to much of that. Heck, it might even lead to election reforms that choke off the opportunities for ballot fraud, even in states that currently do next to nothing to even check who’s voting. At least those are things the Trump administration and Republicans nationwide should redouble their efforts to do. A growing mindset for many Americans is that our welfare state has grown too big and too welcoming of foreigners who take too much. If the GOP works to correct those things — I know, that’s a big IF — then it could be a real win for minimally respectable governance.
