EDITOR’S NOTE: As this article was being prepared for publication, on the morning of Jan. 7, news broke of a shooting in Minneapolis involving ICE. Early details suggest a bystander was shot by a federal agent during a deportation operation. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey issued a statement on X saying: “The presence of federal immigration enforcement agents is causing chaos in our city. We’re demanding ICE to leave the city immediately. We stand rock solid with our immigrant and refugee communities.”
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—The Trump administration and MAGA are pulling out all the stops in their attacks on Minnesota—the Nick Shirley daycare fraud “investigation,” a pause on federal child care funding, the “largest ever” ICE enforcement effort, and unprecedented racist attacks on Somali immigrants. They’re all part of a continued effort by the right to push the deportation agenda in a Democratic-governed state, defund programs that working people rely on, and flip Minnesota to the Republican column in the 2026 midterm elections.
Amid ongoing probes of fraud related to abuse of public funds in the state, on the day after Christmas, right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a video on YouTube called “I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal.” In the vigilante-style video, he alleges that several Somali-run daycare centers are not providing a service but receiving funding anyway from the government. Shirley claims that the centers are empty, with no children present.
In the video, he can be seen going to several different childcare establishments with as many as eight people accompanying him, some of whom were masked, causing reasonable concerns that they may be ICE). The group proceeds to harass employees to the point where Shirley is kicked out of several buildings.
His “investigation” video was debunked four days later by local news organization WCCO, which conducted its own investigation and found that all but two childcare centers visited had active licenses and had been visited by state regulators within the last six months with no evidence of fraud being found. They also had videos of children entering one of the day cares debunking Shirley’s claim head-on.
Facts didn’t matter for the Trump administration, which swiftly froze all childcare funding to the state of Minnesota and nationwide on Dec. 30, with Health and Human Services Director Jim O’Neill citing Shirley’s video in a post on X.
Since late November, Trump has stepped up his already hateful rhetoric against Somali-Americans in Minnesota, including attacking against Rep. Ilhan Omar and calling the entire Somali immigrant community “garbage,” accusing them of “destroying America.” During his first administration, the president called Somalia a “shithole” country and tried to block Somali people from traveling to the U.S.
However, the escalation in his rhetoric right before the holiday season coincided with a major escalation of ICE operations in Minnesota. The Shirley video simply became the fuel for the MAGA right’s further demonization of Somali immigrants ahead of the arrival of deportation agents.
Shortly after the video’s release, the Trump administration announced it would be looking at denaturalizing Somali immigrants, using allegations of fraud as justification. As should be expected, the propaganda offensive is generating hate on the ground. There have been break-ins at Somali-owned daycares after Shirley’s video, and recently Trump upped the number of federal agents being deployed to Minneapolis as part of his immigration crackdown to 2,000.
His offensive has gone far beyond attacks on immigrants, though, as the manufactured Minnesota scandal became the justification for a total nationwide childcare funding freeze, affecting working-class families from coast to coast. Parents rely on those funds to be able to send their children somewhere safe while they are at work; and tens of thousands of childcare workers’ jobs also depend on that federal money.
Despite the administration’s claim that the decision to freeze funds is a response to alleged fraud, cutting childcare programs and programs like Head Start are a component of the far-right’s Project 2025 policy blueprint. The document, which guided the 2024 Republican election campaign, prioritizes stay-at-home parents and in-home childcare—part of its ideological advocacy of traditional family structures and objection to public spending on social needs.
In addition to promoting a conservative social and political agenda, the fraud allegations and deportation onslaught are also an attempt by the MAGA right to strengthen Republican chances in Minnesota for the 2026 midterm elections. Several GOP candidates have put “fraud” claims front-and-center in their campaigns, including Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who admitted to helping Nick Shirley with his video.
Republicans have already successfully used alleged fraud related to Medicare payments to pressure Gov. Tim Walz to end his re-election campaign, and they continue insisting on his resignation from office. More officials will likely end up in their crosshairs.
Legitimate enquiries are underway or have been carried out to investigate abuses of public funds, but the fixation on fraud by Trump and MAGA are not about protecting the people of Minnesota or tax dollars—they are about pushing reactionary politics, whipping up anti-immigrant sentiment, and locking in Republican odds for the midterms.
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