Here’s what’s really happening with child care fraud in Minnesota - MinnPost
The video by right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley posted on December 26 purports to show that various Minneapolis day cares run by Somali Americans are not providing services to children despite receiving public funding. Although the video has already been debunked by investigators, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have seized on it. Vice President JD Vance said Shirley “has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 [Pulitzer Prizes].”
The fallout has been massive. In the past week, the Trump administration has frozen child care payments to five Democratic-run states and ramped up reporting requirements for all states receiving child care funds to cover services for the lowest-income kids. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has suspended his reelection campaign over it.
What does Nick Shirley uncover in his video?
Nothing conclusive. The video shows Shirley visiting day cares run by Somali Americans, sometimes under the false pretense of trying to enroll a child.
Because some of the sites appear closed and Shirley doesn’t see any children, he declares this as proof of fraud at these facilities.
Most child care centers are locked and have obscured doors or windows for children’s safety. Children are also kept in classrooms and would not likely be visible from a reception area. One of the day cares in the video told several news outlets that it did not grant Shirley entrance because he showed up with a handful of masked men, which raised suspicions that the men were agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At least one of the centers was closed at the time Shirley arrived because it opens later in the day to serve the children of second-shift workers.
Is there a history of child care fraud in the state?
Yes, but it’s not as widespread as Shirley claims.
By 2019, state prosecutors had charged at least a dozen Minnesotans and centers with defrauding the state’s child care program in the prior five years.
After the 2019 report was issued, the state tightened oversight, including creating the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) to take over child care licensing, oversight and auditing. Last year, Minnesota passed a law to criminalize kickbacks for child care program enrollment referrals.
2025 report by the federal Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General found that issues with overpayments continue in the state. The OIG sampled 1,155 child care centers and found that 11 percent of the payments made to those centers in 2023 had errors.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean there was fraud. Improper payments is an umbrella term that could include fraud.
For example, “an improper payment is a child was present for 40 hours and somehow the state paid only for 30 hours. Fraud is when you’re charging for kids that were never enrolled,” explained Danielle Ewen, a national child care expert.
An 11 percent rate puts Minnesota above the permissible 10 percent threshold established by the federal government, Ewen said. On average nationwide, the rate is 4 percent.
Most of the centers in the video did have numerous state licensing violations against them regarding cleanliness, staff supervision and some recordkeeping around immunizations and allergies. But none of the violations against the centers were regarding fraud, according to state enforcement records.
Why was the Somali community targeted?
David Hoch, the lobbyist and former right-wing candidate for Minnesota attorney general who serves as the main source in Shirley’s video, received information on the centers from Republican staffers in Minnesota.
Hoch has had a particular focus on the Somali community and fraud for some time. In a now-deleted Instagram account, Hoch posted almost exclusively about the Somali community, according to reporting in The Intercept.
“EVERY Somali in MN is engaged in fraud. ALL of them,” Hoch posted. “Even the Blacks have had enough of the demon Muslims,” he said in November.