United States President Donald Trump’s government has frozen childcare payments to the state of Minnesota and launched audits of immigration cases involving Somali Americans, intensifying a campaign that critics say uses fraud investigations to target immigrant communities.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced the freeze in funds on Tuesday in response to allegations by conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley, who claimed daycare centres operated by Somali Americans in the city of Minneapolis had committed up to $100m in fraud.
His video garnered 127 million views on X and received extensive coverage on Fox News.
Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of health and human services, said the move addressed “serious allegations that the state of Minnesota has funnelled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycare centres across Minnesota over the past decade”.
“We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud,” O’Neill said.
Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the US, and the $185m in frozen federal funds subsidise childcare for low-income families across the state.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz immediately denounced the freeze as politically motivated.
“This is Trump’s long game. We’ve spent years cracking down on fraudsters. It’s a serious issue – but this has been his plan all along,” he wrote on X.
“He’s politicising the issue to defund programmes that help Minnesotans.”
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