US President Donald Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would suspend child care funding to Minnesota while calling for an audit into alleged fraud involving government assistance programs, AP reported.
Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill said on the social platform
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pushed back on
“He’s politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans,” Walz said.
O’Neill referenced a right-wing influencer who posted a video Friday claiming he found that day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had committed up to $100 million in fraud. O’Neill said he has demanded Walz submit an audit of these centers that includes attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations and inspections.
“We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud,” O’Neill said.
The announcement followed a day after US Homeland Security officials visited Minneapolis to conduct a fraud investigation, during which they approached undisclosed businesses and questioned employees.
The move comes amid long-running investigations, including a $300 million pandemic-era food fraud case linked to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. In that case, 57 defendants in Minnesota have been convicted after prosecutors said the organization played a central role in the nation’s largest COVID-19-related fraud scheme, exploiting a state-administered, federally funded program intended to provide meals for children.
A federal prosecutor alleged earlier this month that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen. Most of the defendants in the child nutrition, housing services and autism program schemes are Somali Americans, according to the US Attorney’s Office for Minnesota.
O’Neill, who is serving as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said in the social media post Tuesday that payments across the US through the Administration for Children and Families, an agency within the US Health and Human Services Department, will now require “justification and a receipt or photo evidence” before money is sent. They have also launched a fraud-reporting hotline and email address.
The Administration for Children and Families provides $185 million in child care funds annually to Minnesota, according to Assistant Secretary Alex Adams.
“That money should be helping 19,000 American children, including toddlers and infants,” he said in a video posted on
Adams said he spoke Monday with the director of Minnesota’s child care services office and she wasn’t able to say “with confidence whether those allegations of fraud are isolated or whether there’s fraud stretching statewide.”
Trump has criticized Walz’s administration over the fraud cases, capitalizing on them to target the Somalia diaspora in the state, which has the largest Somali population in the US, AP reported.
Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, has said an audit due by late January should give a better picture of the extent of the fraud. He said his administration is taking aggressive action to prevent additional fraud. He has long defended how his administration responded.
He’s politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.
Minnesota’s most prominent Somali American, Democratic US Rep. Ilhan Omar, has urged people not to blame an entire community for the actions of a relative few.
Key Takeaways
- The Trump administration’s freeze on child care funds stems from allegations of extensive fraud in Minnesota’s assistance programs.
- Governor Tim Walz advocates for addressing fraud without harming community support, emphasizing the importance of protecting vulnerable populations.
- Increased scrutiny and new measures, such as requiring receipts for payments, aim to prevent further fraud in government assistance programs.
