As part of a campaign to advance Donald Trump’s racist smears of Somali immigrants, Republicans are ignoring fraud prosecutions that occurred under Democrats while promoting an anti-immigrant YouTuber.
Over the weekend, a video by conservative YouTube personality Nick Shirley was promoted by several prominent Republicans. The video shows Shirley visiting several childcare centers in Minnesota, alleging that they are inactive but receive state funding. The video alleges that the centers run by Somali immigrants are being allowed to defraud taxpayers under Gov. Tim Walz and are part of a pattern going back to the Biden administration.
Vice President JD Vance praised the video, calling it “a microcosm of the immigration fraud in our system.” Elon Musk claimed the video exposed a “radical left” plot while Donald Trump Jr. said it was “what they’re doing to your country with your tax dollars.”
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But this narrative ignores the fact that reining in this sort of alleged behavior was a focus of the Biden administration.
For instance, the Department of Justice under former Attorney General Merrick Garland prosecuted 47 individuals in Minnesota in 2022 as part of a fraudulent scheme using COVID-19 pandemic relief funds. In a release, Garland described the prosecution of the nonprofit group Feeding Our Future as “the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme charged to date” and restated the administration’s commitment to fighting against efforts to defraud the federal government.
In fact, at least 28 criminal convictions of the group were secured under the Biden administration.
Notably, the violations from the group in question occurred from 2019 to 2021—mostly when the first Trump administration was in power.
More recently, Walz ordered audits in October for 14 Medicaid programs in his state that have been deemed “high-risk” for potential fraud. “In order to restore that trust we are pumping the brakes on 14 programs that were created to help the most disadvantaged among us, yet have become the target of criminal activity,” Walz said in a statement.
On Dec. 18, charges were brought against several people accused of defrauding the state in a move Walz described as “the type of strong action we need from prosecutors to ensure fraudsters are put behind bars.”
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Shirley, the YouTube personality driving the current narrative, is an established part of the right’s anti-immigrant propaganda efforts. He was one of several online content creators invited by the Trump administration to promote the use of El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison as a dumping ground for migrants removed from the United States. CECOT is the prison where torture and abuse have been alleged.
The videos about Minnesota are part of a multi-pronged campaign led by Trump to attack and smear migrants from Somalia, who are Black.
Trump has called these people “garbage” and used Somali migration to Minnesota as a purported example of the downside of immigration. Trump has used these attacks to demonize Rep. Ilhan Omar in particular, who represents that community and is herself a Somali immigrant to the U.S.
Omar has received harassment following Trump’s attacks.
For all the purported concern about crime from Somali immigrants, the right has lined up behind Trump, a convicted felon, his administration, and his grifty family—all having a much more significant connection to crime than the average Somali migrant living in Minnesota.
