THERE is so much misinformation, deception, manipulation as well as racism, bigotry xenophobia and flat out lying regarding the accusations of fraud of government funds by the Somali community that they have been declared guilty en masse before most investigations have even started and of those started are not yet completed. This on the latest anti-immigrant feeding frenzy encouraged by NOT MY pres drumpf / trump, fascist fotze trunt arschlecker nick shirley, Homeland Security fascist fotze trunt kkkristi noem , FBI director fascist fotze trunt kash patel ( who should soon be under investigation of misuse of govt funds benefiting his gurl fiend ) and Dep Sec of Health and Human Services fascist fotze trunt jimmy o'neil. Thank God they have Rep Ilhan Omar D-MN to stand up for and protect the innocent! From The PBS NewsHour and NPR.....Federal agents probe fraud allegations targeting Somali child care providers in Minnesota
This week, the Trump administration dispatched federal officers to Minnesota amid concerns over fraud. The deployment comes after a right-wing influencer posted a video claiming, without proof, that daycare centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had misappropriated more than $100 million. Nick Schifrin discussed more with Jeff Meitrodt of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
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Nick Schifrin:
This week, the Trump administration dispatched federal officers to Minnesota amid renewed concerns over fraud. The deployment comes after right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a video on YouTube last week claiming without proof that day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had misappropriated more than $100 million.
In response, FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X his agency was already investigating and that -- quote -- "This is just the tip of a very large iceberg." And Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted this video yesterday of agents on the ground in Minneapolis.
But state and city officials question Shirley's claims that come as the Somali community in Minneapolis was already facing the administration's immigration crackdown.
To break it all down, I'm joined by Jeff Meitrodt of The Minnesota Star Tribune, who's been covering this story.
Jeff Meitrodt, thanks very much. Welcome to the "News Hour."
Federal prosecutors said earlier this month they're investigating some $9 billion worth of fraud in more than a dozen Medicaid-funded programs in Minnesota. That is much broader, much larger than anything they have announced previously. So explain, what's new here?
Jeff Meitrodt, Investigative Reporter, The Minnesota Star Tribune:
What's new here is that a fraud problem that started with a COVID era really relief program to help kids get meals when the schools were all shut down has just spiraled into this sort of giant monster that just keeps spreading from one program to another.
It seems like there's a playbook that's been passed around out there, and dozens, if not hundreds, of criminals are figuring out how to rip out the state for -- it's certainly hundreds of millions of dollars. And I think, at the $9 billion, my God, that's a huge lift.
I guess it's possible, but there's been a little bit of skepticism about that number too.
Nick Schifrin:
In the video, Nick Shirley visits several day cares. Some appear closed and some turn him away when he asks to see children. And he seems to take this as proof that the centers are fraudulent. What is he claiming and how does it square with your reporting?
Jeff Meitrodt:
Well, it's not investigative reporting by any stretch of the imagination.
I can't imagine these day care facilities letting a stranger in the door. That seems like a violation of all kinds of rules, state and federal, but it does make good theater. And it does raise actually questions about the legitimacy of some of these sites.
Some of these do not look like your standard day cares, blacked-out windows, sites that are not that family-friendly. And so it looks damning. And it may very well be that some of these sites are not taking care of children. It looks like a couple of them actually have been closed for some period of time.
So did he cherry-pick a list for sort of maximum impact visually that ultimately is going to turn out to be nothing? We don't know yet. The state hasn't shared any of their results from what they saw on the streets this week when they went and they visited those day care centers.
Nick Schifrin:
Have any of the sites themselves responded?
Jeff Meitrodt:
Yes, we have heard from several of them. We visited some of them today and yesterday. They're pushing back and saying, it's business as usual here, we're still open.
My colleague was in one today that had 50 kids present, which certainly is not the narrative that we saw in the video. And it did not look like a staged situation, like they just suddenly put in a bunch of cots for kids.
But that said, we have visited all of them. And at least one of them had quite a history of problems, including a failure to report what looks like either the death of a child or some other kind of very serious incident. So these look like some facilities that may have some issues. Whether they're committing fraud, that's a different question.
Nick Schifrin:
As you know, Republicans have put the blame on Minnesota's Democratic governor, Tim Walz.
And here's what his office told us in part -- quote -- "Fraud is unacceptable and it is appropriate that the federal government is investigating problems in federal programs. The governor has been combating this for years, and before the viral video, the state had already referred these cases to law enforcement."
What has the state and federal response been even before the latest allegations?
Jeff Meitrodt:
Very robust at the federal level, somewhat tepid at the state level.
And so I think there's legitimate questions that have been raised about whether the state did what it needed to do at the beginning to shut this thing down. Now, there certainly has been a lot of action at the state level recently to try to crack down, create new guardrails, to create new processes that would catch fraud and prevent these kind of things from happening again.
But a lot of critics are saying this is a little bit too little too late.
Nick Schifrin:
And, finally, the Somali community in Minneapolis has been demonized by the president of the United States, who has called them -- quote -- "garbage." He said: "We don't want them in our country."
And here's what Ahmed Samatar told our Fred de Sam Lazaro these new allegations. He's a Somali professor at Macalester College in St. Paul. He's lived in Minnesota for over 30 years.
Ahmed Samatar, Macalester College:
The consequences could be frightening for many Somalis, especially young people who would think that they were born here, they're living the life of a normal citizen, going to school and getting along with life, and, therefore, should now have to watch their back all the time because they are targeted as an unwanted foreign group of people.
That's the danger.
Nick Schifrin:
How is this renewed attention affecting the Somali community?
Jeff Meitrodt:
Absolutely.
They have been under siege now for weeks with this crackdown by ICE. And I think the recent video, I mean, based on the hate mail that I'm getting for the stories that we have done that have raised some questions about both things that the state have done, statements that the feds have made, I can't imagine what it's like to be a Somali person in our community right now.
Minnesota is home to the largest Somali community in the United States. Over 100,000 folks are living here. They're police officers. They're teachers. A handful of them are criminals. But it's painting the entire community with a very broad brush.
Nick Schifrin:
Jeff Meitrodt is with The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Thank you very much.
Jeff Meitrodt:
Thank you.
Trump administration says it's freezing child care funds to Minnesota
President Trump's administration announced on Tuesday that it is freezing child care funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of fraud schemes involving government programs.
Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O'Neill said on the social platform X that the move is in response to "blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country."
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pushed back on X, saying fraudsters are a serious issue that the state has spent years cracking down on but that this move is part of "Trump's long game."
"He's politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans," Walz said.
O'Neill referenced a right-wing influencer who posted a video Friday claiming he found that day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had committed up to $100 million in fraud. O'Neill said he has demanded Walz submit an audit of these centers that includes attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations and inspections.
"We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud," O'Neill said.
The announcement comes one day after U.S. Homeland Security officials were in Minneapolis conducting a fraud investigation by going to unidentified businesses and questioning workers.
There have been years of investigations that included a $300 million pandemic food fraud scheme revolving around the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, for which 57 defendants in Minnesota have been convicted. Prosecutors said the organization was at the center of the country's largest COVID-19-related fraud scam, when defendants exploited a state-run, federally funded program meant to provide food for children.
A federal prosecutor alleged earlier this month that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen. Most of the defendants in the child nutrition, housing services and autism program schemes are Somali Americans, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for Minnesota.
O'Neill, who is serving as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said in the social media post Tuesday that payments across the U.S. through the Administration for Children and Families, an agency within the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, will now require "justification and a receipt or photo evidence" before money is sent. They have also launched a fraud-reporting hotline and email address.
The Administration for Children and Families provides $185 million in child care funds annually to Minnesota, according to Assistant Secretary Alex Adams.
"That money should be helping 19,000 American children, including toddlers and infants," he said in a video posted on X. "Any dollar stolen by fraudsters is stolen from those children."
Adams said he spoke Monday with the director of Minnesota's child care services office and she wasn't able to say "with confidence whether those allegations of fraud are isolated or whether there's fraud stretching statewide."
Trump has criticized Walz's administration over the fraud cases, capitalizing on them to target the Somalia diaspora in the state, which has the largest Somali population in the U.S.
Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, has said an audit due by late January should give a better picture of the extent of the fraud. 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.
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