A Viral YouTube Video Shows Alleged Fraud at Somali Daycares in Minnesota

President Donald Trump's second term has been heavily focused on immigration. In the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, he gave federal agencies $170 billion for anti-immigrant enforcement, detention, and deportation.

Of that, $75 billion will go directly to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, per NPR.

One section of the immigrant population the president is particularly obsessed with is Somalis. In a December 2025 cabinet meeting, Trump referred to Somali immigrants as "garbage," adding that he doesn't want them in the United States, per The New York Times.

Some of his outrage stems from an investigation in Minnesota that uncovered alleged fraud within the Somali community. Let's take a look at the allegations against these Somali-run daycare centers.

In November 2025, The New York Times reported on accusations of fraud in the state of Minnesota. Federal prosecutors "charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed during the Covid-19 pandemic."

This opened the door for further investigations into government funding and how it's used and tracked.

Law enforcement officials have said members of the Somali diaspora "made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided."

As of this writing, 86 people have been charged with meals, housing, and autism therapy fraud cases. All but eight are Somali immigrants.

A month after the fraud allegations came to light, a conservative YouTuber named Nick Shirley released a video titled "I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal." In it, Shirley is working alongside the person who actually did the investigating. The only thing we know about this gentleman is that he is a concerned citizen named David.

Shirley's video is nearly 45 minutes in length and shows the YouTuber and David going to Somali-run daycare centers to inquire about the alleged fraud. Because we are at the mercy of Shirley's editing and narrative, it's important to take this information with a grain of salt.

David claims the fraud in Minnesota is "far worse than anybody can imagine." Things started to click for David as he was working in an area where there were a lot of Somali-run daycare centers. He told Nick there were never any children outside, so he went online and looked at how many kids are licensed to attend each facility.

That's when David saw how much each daycare center was getting from the state of Minnesota.

Throughout the video, Nick and David go to several daycare centers. Each time, they are met with locked doors and seemingly empty facilities. When someone does speak with them, they refuse to divulge any information about the daycare centers.

The duo also visits healthcare facilities. These are usually empty as well.

The video ends with Nick at the state capitol, where he attends a hearing about the alleged fraud scandal. Nick confronts a state lawmaker, but mostly asks if Governor Tim Walz should be held responsible. The governor told Newsweek that he had "worked for years to crack down on fraud and asked the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action."

It's worth noting that Nick liked a comment under his video, suggesting Walz should go to jail.