Wednesday morning, the Department of Homeland Security posted on“GOOD MORNING MINNEAPOLIS! » Rep. Tom Emmer, a Republican leader in the House who represents suburban Minneapolis, commented with encouragement: “Go out there and get them.”
The Trump administration jumped thousands of immigration agents in the Twin Cities in what he called the largest DHS operation ever. While the administration often presents its deportation operations as efforts to keep Americans safe, it has added another angle to its campaign in Minnesota: rooting out fraud.
In 2022, under the Biden administration, federal prosecutors uncovered a massive scheme to defraud a pandemic food program in Minnesota’s Somali community, leading to charges against dozens of defendants and a growing number of convictions.
In the weeks before the DHS rollout, conservative commentators brought up the years-old scandal, suggesting that fraud was a reason to target East African migrants in the Minneapolis area. And days after the story made its way into conservative social media circles, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X that the agents were “on the ground» in response.
More than 2,000 agents and officers DHS descended on the Twin Cities, and tensions are high after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Renee Nicole Good was shota 37-year-old mother. DHS said the incident was an act of self-defense, while some witnesses and the mayor of Minneapolis have disputed this explanation.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has called the Somali community “trash” and right-wing influencers have filled
Here’s how a scandal pursued under the Biden and Trump administrations went from a relatively local issue to one that garnered national attention and was cited in bolstering the White House’s crackdown on immigration.
A memorial for Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesThe crimeThe scale of the fraud was massive. Prosecutors initially described a $250 million scheme, but have since increased their estimate to $300 million — the largest fraud to emerge from the Covid-19 relief programs.
Federal prosecutors have charged 78 defendants with ties to Feeding Our Future, the Minneapolis nonprofit at the center of the scandal. A jury convicted the accused ringleader in March, while other defendants have pleaded guilty and still others await trial. Most of them are of Somali origin and vast majority are American citizens, according to the New York Times, citing prosecutors.
The scam involved government-subsidized children’s meals, prosecutors said: The nonprofit accepted grants intended to feed thousands of children in minority communities, but its work was fictitious and it submitted false records to keep the money flowing.
Prosecutors have broadened their scope. Using the Feeding Our Future fraud as a starting point, they have since filed lawsuits against other members of Minnesota’s Somali community, alleging fraud against other government support programs.
How it startedThe scandal began at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Government spending has increased to try to mitigate the economic impact, and agencies have eased some spending restrictions.
Prosecutors said Aimee Bock, founder and executive director of Feeding Our Future, worked with co-conspirators to create shell companies, falsify attendance lists and falsify documents indicating that thousands of children were receiving meals.
Most of the children Bock allegedly fostered – and many of his co-conspirators – were Somali Americans.
In November of last year, when conservative influencers began taking an interest in fraud cases in Minnesota, they contacted nonprofits and businesses with similar questions: asking if they provided the services they claimed to offer.
Why did it last so longThere were early warning signs, according to an autopsy of failures conducted by the nonpartisan Minnesota Legislative Auditor’s Office.
As early as 2018, the Minnesota Department of Education received complaints about the leadership of Feeding Our Future. And in February 2020, the Internal Revenue Service revoked the nonprofit’s status, citing failure to file documents.
Then, in April 2020, as schools were closed and welfare programs ramped up, Feeding Our Future sent a draft complaint to the Minnesota Department of Education, threatening to sue if the state did not approve its meal program requests. The state complied, according to the auditor. A similar trend continued for over a year.
In November 2020, Feeding Our Future sued the Minnesota Department of Educationalleging that the state was slowing down its grant applications.
The lawsuit has put state officials on the defensive, according to the Office of the Legislative Auditorand dissuaded them from taking action against the nonprofit.
Auditors criticized the state for not having the investigative resources necessary to detect fraud. For example, the state conducted some of its monitoring visits virtually — a practice it later admitted did not work.
How they were caughtThe FBI became aware of the fraud thanks to a tip, according to legislative auditors: In February 2021, the FBI notified the State of allegations it received that Bock was accepting bribes and not providing the meals she claimed to provide. Two months later, the state Department of Education told the FBI that the information was substantiated, and the FBI launched its investigation in May.
The consequences came in 2022. In January, the FBI raided Feeding Our Future’s office and the Minnesota Department of Education cut off its funding. Later that year, federal prosecutors indictments announced against 47 accused. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland described it as “the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme charged to date,” at $250 million.
While the case was being litigated national And international Because of their scale, the indictments made headlines and played out primarily in courtrooms and out of the spotlight. Three accused pleaded guilty in October 2022, and prosecutors have begun preparing to bring the remaining defendants to trial.
A jury found guilty five defendants in a June 2024 trial, and prosecutors have also charged additional people beyond those initially charged.
The 2024 electionWhen Democrat Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as vice presidential running mate in August 2024, the fraud investigation was one of the first things The Republicans used to attack him. This fall, House Republicans issued a subpoena to Walz for documents related to his oversight of Feeding our Future. But the fraud case fell out of the national debate after Harris’ defeat.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks during a campaign rally with Kamala Harris on August 6, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.File Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesFederal prosecutors continued to work on the case. Andrew Luger, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney in Minnesota, said in December 2024 that he did not expect the election outcome to significantly change how the government pursued fraud cases like the one involving Feeding Our Future.
“It’s bipartisan,” he said The Minnesota Star Tribune shortly before leaving office.
The mushrooms of the investigationBock, the founder of Feeding Our Future who prosecutors called the mastermind of the fraud, was convicted in March 2025. She now awaits sentencing and was ordered to give up his assets, including a 2013 Porsche and $3.5 million from Feeding Our Future’s bank account.
But federal prosecutors have not stopped their investigation into the meal program. In recent months, they have pursued what they said were similar fraud cases involving other safety net programs.
In September 2025, the Ministry of Justice charged eight peoplealleging defrauding a Minnesota program designed to help seniors and people with disabilities find housing. The same month, he indicted a man whom prosecutors accused of defraud a Minnesota health care program designed to help people with autism.
“These massive fraud schemes form a network that stole billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars,” said Joseph H. Thompson, a career federal prosecutor who was acting U.S. attorney in Minnesota at the time.
Conservative media are interested againOn September 18, Trump took aim at Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia, and Somali Americans, telling reporters on Air Force One that Omar is “terrible” and saying, “They come from a place with nothing, nothing, no, anything, and then they tell us how to run our country.” Trump’s criticism came after Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to censor her for a video reposted on her X account that Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said “defamed Charlie Kirk and implied he was responsible for his own murder.”
On November 19, the City Journal, a magazine run by the Manhattan Institute, a right-wing think tank, published an article summarizing allegations of fraud in Minnesota. He was largely inspired local media coverageindictments and press releases from prosecutors, but it also cites sources a nononyms to claim that some of the money was funneled to al-Shabab, a Militant group based in Somalia that the United States and other countries have designated as a terrorist organization. Fox News picked up the story. One of the sources cited from the article later criticized the playand federal prosecutors have not alleged that any of the government funds went to activist groups. Christopher Rufo, one of the editors of the City Journal, posted on that he sticks to the room. The City Journal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reuters reported that the allegations about al-Shabab were apparently passed to Trump through several Republican lawmakers. In two days, Trump said he would end temporary deportation protections for Somalis living in Minnesota, asserting on on social media, the state had become “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activities.”
Asset continued to attack Somali immigrants in December, as ICE agents launched a new deportation operation in the Twin Cities, which Reuters reported had put the Somali community on edge.
Influencers focus on daycareAt the same time, Nick Shirley, a right-wing YouTube influencer from Utah, was on the ground in Minneapolis filming himself attempting to visit Somali daycare centers. He had previously posted a video about Muslims in Minnesota, which insinuated an Islamic takeover was fo ot, attracting little attention. But on December 26, he released a 42-minute film video claiming he had uncovered more than $100 million in fraud. It quickly went viral and now has over 139 million views on X.
Other social media influencers and journalists visited the same facilities identified in Shirley’s video in the two weeks since its publication – some echoing Shirley’s claims they are fraudulent, and others demonstrate things he was wrong. THE Minnesota Star Tribune reported On January 1, while visiting the same day care centers where Shirley had shown or implied that no children were present, the newspaper observed children in four and was not allowed entry into six others.
Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families said January 2 that its investigators checked nine of the daycares described as fraudulent in viral social media clips and found that they were operating normally, and one is now closed.
Unproven fraud allegations extend beyond MinnesotaDuring the week of New Year’s Eve, Shirley’s video made headlines in conservative media. Right-wing political activists and influencers quickly noticed his viral success and imitated his tactics with similar videos during which they visited child care centers in other states, including Ohio, Oregon and Washington. Prominent pro-Trump accounts on
The vast majority of daycares highlighted appeared to be linked to Somali immigrants. Some state lawmakers and congressional candidates have called for the state to conduct investigations to determine whether “Minnesota-style fraud” is occurring in their cities.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has tried to quell speculation about widespread, unchecked fraud in the state by checking the facts. viral but misleading complaints about X regarding specific daycares. In a sequel press conference on Jan. 5, he explained in more detail how the state monitors its 5,200 child care centers. DeWine said the public should not be surprised that daycares tell people who show up during filming that they are not allowed in; This is for the protection of children.
“No, no one should let them in,” he said.
But conservative content creators and activists continued to post videos of themselves visiting day care centers run by members of the Somali community in Ohio and other states. They also drew attention to company records, raising questions about why some companies share mailing addresses or properties.
Musse Olol, president of the Somali American Council of Oregon, told NBC News that businesses in the community have faced what appears to be coordinated harassment, ranging from racial and religious slurs online to people taking photos outside their offices.
“This looks like a targeted and unprecedented campaign,” Olol said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit advocacy group, said Monday that American-run Somali daycares and businesses need more protection from law enforcement because they have received a wave of threats stemming from the social media firestorm.
Trump administration freezes fundsSocial media’s focus on child care prompted a multi-agency response from the Trump administration.
The Department of Health and Human Services said last week it was withholding nearly $10 billion in federal funds intended to support child care, primarily through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, from five Democratic-led states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York. On Friday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the move.
Vice President JD Vance told reporters Thursday that the administration planned to create a new position of deputy attorney general – directed directly from the White House – to investigate allegations of fraud. He said there had been misconduct in Ohio and California, but did not provide examples.
The Trump administration has required California to provide verified attendance information in order to recoup its child care funds, according to a series of letters from the federal Administration for Children and Families cited in the New York Post who speculate that welfare funds went to ineligible non-citizens.
HHS also proposed a series of new rules this week to change the way childcare is subsidized by the government, including removing the requirement to pay based on enrollment figures. Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of the ministry, said on on social media that the Biden administration facilitated fraud in child care support programs through a regulation which bases payment on registration rather than attendance. However, Biden-era regulations still allowed states to require attendance records from child care providers and cut them off if they had “excessive unexplained absences.”
Law enforcement officers attack a protester outside an ICE facility in Minneapolis on Thursday.Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty ImagesMeanwhile, DHS released several tweets in recent weeks announcing that his the agents will “DOOR TO DOOR” in Minnesota to investigate anonymous companies for fraud, and the The DOJ said it did send additional federal prosecutors to help.
Congressional Republicans have also taken up the issue.
On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held the first in a series of planned hearings on social services fraud. in Minnesota. Three Minnesota GOPs lawmakers appeared as witnessesresponding to questions from committee Republicans who placed blame on Walz. Congressional Democrats have accused Republicans of inappropriately focusing on the Somali community.
The committee’s Republican leaders said they could subpoena Walz — who ended his bid for a third term as governor this week — and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for a future hearing.
That same day – the last of Renée Nicole Good’s life – Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said the agency ” was bringing agents into Minnesota as part of the “largest immigration operation ever.”
David Ingram is a technology reporter for NBC News.
Tyler Kingkade is a national reporter for NBC News, based in Los Angeles.