WASHINGTON: The Trump administration in recent months has latched onto news of a large-scale public benefit fraud scandal to carry out immigration raids and harsher policies targeting Minnesota’s large Somali migrant community.

Federal charges have been filed against 98 people accused of embezzlement of public funds and — as Attorney General Pam Bondi stressed on Monday — 85 of the defendants are “of Somali descent.”

Fifty-seven people have already been convicted in the scheme to divert $300 million in public grants intended to distribute free meals to children — but the meals never existed, prosecutors said.

Republican elected officials and federal prosecutors accuse local Democratic authorities of turning a blind eye to numerous warnings because the fraud involved Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest in the country, with around 80,000 members.

“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 the political constituency of the governor and the ruling party, the Democrats here,” state representative Kristin Robbins, a Republican who is running for governor, said.

Investigations mount

Democratic Governor Tim Walz — Kamala Harris’s running mate in 2024 — rejects the accusation.

While the case became public in 2022, prosecutors ramped it up again this year with hotly politicized revelations.

Another Republican candidate for governor, state House Speaker Lisa Demuth, said the case is “finally getting the attention that it’s needed.”

Right-leaning YouTube content creator Nick Shirley reignited interest in the case over the holidays with a video that he claims shows daycare centers that are siphoning public money.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2026