Donald Trump goes scorched earth on Minnesota's Somali fraud scandal saying $18BILLION was stolen... as he names three states where it's even worse | Retrui News | Retrui
'They stole $18billion, that's just what we're learning about. California's worse, Illinois' worse and sadly, New York's worse, a lot of other places,' he said.
As the assembled crowd of celebrities, members of his cabinet and family applauded, he then declared that 'we're gonna' get to the bottom of all of it.
On Friday, right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a video on YouTube, claiming that day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had committed up to $100m in fraud.
In the video he stands outside two deserted 'daycare centers' which have collected $2.6m in federal grants despite not appearing to be in operation and highlighted a number of other alleged frauds.
Donald Trump went off on the ongoing Minnesota migrant fraud scandal and revealed where his administration believes its found even worse corruption
As he addressed the gathering, he spelled out the shocking amount of government waste that had come from the state, days after a viral video blew the story wide open
The city of Minneapolis-St Paul's Somali community began in the 1990s when it accepted refugees fleeing the country's civil war, and there are now around 94,000 city residents who speak the language.
Politicians in the Democrat-controlled state now stand accused of turning a blind eye to the fraud scandal for fear of being accused of racism.
And Donald Trump has weighed in, branding Minnesota a 'hub of fraudulent money laundering activity', while FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X that 'this is just the tip of a very large iceberg'.
Shirley's video - which amassed 2.5 million views on YouTube in a few days - is just the latest alleged scheme in a string of scandals plaguing Minnesota, which prosecutors say have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
It followed the White House launching a crackdown on illegal immigration in the state - the home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the US - after Trump said America would 'go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage'.
In addition to Shirley's new bombshell claims, 14 Medicaid-funded programs in Minnesota are already under federal investigation for an alleged $9b COVID-era fraud scandal.
Throughout Shirley's video, entitled 'I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal', the YouTuber visits several facilities purporting to be daycare centers accommodating hundreds of children.
But when he visits the centers, many of them are closed, the windows are blacked out, and no children can be seen.
On Friday, right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a video on YouTube, claiming that day care centres operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had committed up to $100m in fraud
'They're open seven days a week, 7am to 10pm it says here on their sign, yet there's absolutely nobody here,' he says, standing outside one center.
Later, the content creator visits another facility, with a misspelt sign outside that reads 'Quality Learing [sic] Center'.
He asks a man who says he has lived in the neighborhood for eight years if he's ever seen children entering the center.
'None, not at all,' the man replies. 'I've been here since 2017 and I haven't seen anybody down here.'
On several occasions, people inside the center refuse to open the door to Shirley and ask for him to leave.
As Homeland Security agents flock to Minnesota for what DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called a 'massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud', longstanding investigations dating back to 2022 continue.
Federal charges have already been filed against 98 people in Minnesota, and at least 60 have been convicted.
As Attorney General Pam Bondi stressed on Monday - 85 of the defendants accused of embezzlement of public funds are 'of Somali descent'.
Men take part in a weekly Friday Jum'ah prayer session at Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Centre, Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, December 5, 2025
Joseph H. Thompson, the prosecutor conducting the investigation, said he had identified 'staggering, industrial-scale fraud' in Minnesota’s safety-net programs.
But prosecutors say fraudsters billed the government for social services that were never provided.
Fifty-seven people have already been convicted in a scheme to divert $300 million in public grants intended to distribute free meals to children - but the meals never existed, prosecutors said.
The fraudulent payouts to the 'Feeding Our Future' program constituted the nation's costliest Covid-era scam.
'What's happening in Minnesota is a microcosm of the immigration fraud in our system,' Vice President JD Vance posted on X.
'Politicians like it because they get power. Welfare cheats like it because they get rich. But it's a zero-sum game, and they're stealing both money and political power from Minnesotans.'
'Somali scammers get rich off the programs Governor Walz was supposed to be managing,' Dr. Oz, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said in a video earlier this month.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents sit in a parked vehicle amid a reported federal immigration operation targeting the Somali community, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, December 10, 2025
Demonstrators rally outside a Target location on December 4, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Threatening to cut off federal funding for programs administered by state officials, he said: 'Minnesota politicians get elected with Somali votes and keep the money flowing.'
Announcing the expansion of the investigation into Minnesota’s social services programs, prosecutor Thompson said new suspects included two men from Philadelphia who were engaged in 'fraud tourism'.
He said they travelled to the state 'because they knew and understood that Minnesota was a place where taxpayer money can be taken with little risk and few consequences'.
Somali-Americans in Minnesota described their heightened fear following derogatory comments made by the president, who said during a cabinet meeting earlier this month that Somalia 'stinks' and is 'no good for a reason'.
'They contribute nothing,' Trump said, adding: 'I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you.'
He hit out against Omar, calling the congresswoman an 'incompetent person'.
'Anyone who looks like me [is] scared right now,' Jamal Osman, a member of the Minneapolis City Council, told CBS News.
'My community is upset. Yes, people commit crimes, but an entire community should not be blamed based on what some individuals did.'
One of the alleged phony daycare centers exposed by Shirley
'ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is already here,' said Kowsar Mohamed, who lives in south Minneapolis.
'We're seeing boots on the ground activity where folks are just being plucked off of the streets and being asked about their residency status. That's not a data informed approach.'
The Trump administration in recent months has latched onto news of the large-scale public benefit fraud scandal to carry out immigration raids and harsher policies targeting Minnesota's large Somali migrant community.
Republican elected officials and federal prosecutors have accused the local Democratic authorities of turning a blind eye to numerous warnings because the fraud involved Minnesota's Somali community.
'When whistleblowers raised concerns, they were told that they shouldn't say anything out of fear of being called racist or Islamophobic, or because it was going to hurt political constituency of the governor and the ruling party, the Democrats here,' state representative Kristin Robbins, a Republican who is running for governor, told AFP.
Democratic Governor Walz - former vice president Kamala Harris's unsuccessful running mate in 2024 - rejects the accusation.
While the case became public in 2022, prosecutors ramped it up again this year with hotly politicised revelations.
Another Republican candidate for governor, state house speaker Lisa Demuth, told AFP the case is 'finally getting the attention that it's needed' - especially following the viral video published by content creator Shirley.
The video - which blew up on X with tens of millions of views and played repeatedly on Fox News - resonated with Trump's 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) circles, who are opposed to what they deem to be overly generous social and immigration policies.
The Trump administration responded to the outcry immediately, with DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin telling Fox News that hundreds of investigators were targeting local businesses in Minneapolis.
'We believe that there is rampant fraud, whether it be daycare centers, health care centers, or other organizations,' she said.
As part of the crackdown, federal health officials announced a broad freeze of funding to Minnesota and across the county.
'We have frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota,' Health and Human Services (HHS) deputy Jim O'Neill wrote in an X post Tuesday.
'We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud.'
HHS has broad spending oversight for programs for the underprivileged, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, early education of toddlers and foster care.
'While we have questions about some of the methods used in the video, we do take the concerns that the video raises about fraud very seriously,' said Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families commissioner Tikki Brown.
Responding to the video, FBI Director Patel said his agency was aware of 'recent social media reports', and that investigations into fraud in Minnesota were 'ongoing' since the pandemic.
'The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. We will continue to follow the money and protect children, and this investigation very much remains ongoing,' Patel wrote on X.
CBS, which conducted its own analysis of nearly a dozen daycare centers mentioned by Shirley, said it found no evidence of fraud when it reviewed public records for the facilities, although it did find citations related to safety, cleanliness, equipment, and staff training.
All but two of the centers mentioned in the video had active licenses and were all visited by state regulators in the last six months.
Minnesota congressman Tom Emmer, a leading figure in the Republican majority of Congress, called for mass 'denaturalisation and deportation of every Somali engaged in fraud in Minnesota,' in an X post Monday.
President Trump preceded Emmer's call with similar sentiments at the end of November, when a conservative outlet claimed money embezzled in Minnesota was being used to fund Somalia's Al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda linked Islamist militant group.
That accusation has since been denied by the prosecutor in the case.
But the US president was quick to accuse 'Somali gangs' of 'terrorizing' Minnesotans and ended their Temporary Protected Status, a program that exempted Somalis from deportation to their war-torn country.
A surge in immigration raids followed his comments, creating 'a dangerous atmosphere of chaos and instability that is making it harder for our police officers to keep Minneapolis safe,' mayor Jacob Frey said at the time.
Democratic lawmaker Zaynab Mohamed, whose family emigrated from Somalia when she was a child, decried the Trump administration's actions.
'Trump is scapegoating a tiny piece of the population,' she said. 'This is not about crime. It's not about safety. This is about purging people like me from this country.'