OPINION:
The multibillion-dollar Somali welfare scandal in Minnesota continues to grow, even as Democrats do their best to tamp it down.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents the Twin Cities area and is a naturalized citizen from Somalia, lamented the fraud but said the focus on Somalis was because of bigotry. She wrote a column for The New York Times accusing President Trump of “hate speech” and “racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and division.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who was sworn into office on a Quran instead of a Bible, called the Trump administration’s recent order to end temporary protected status for Somali nationals an example of “racism.”
Wearing a hijab, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (aka “al-Flanagan”) told a crowd at a Somali market, “We have your back.” Somalis now number more than 107,000 in Minnesota, mostly in the Democratic-run area of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
The scandal may involve as much as $9 billion stolen, according to the lead federal prosecutor in Minnesota.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is posing as a fraud-exposing superhero instead of what he really is: a crook or clueless political hack.
Remember, Mr. Walz is the guy who said he was placed on the Kamala Harris ticket in 2024 as the vice presidential nominee “because I could code-talk to White guys watching football, fixing their truck, doing that. I could put them at ease.”
As part of his manly appeal, Mr. Walz ordered tampon dispensers to be placed in boys’ bathrooms in public schools. Yes, he did.
Despite the Democrats’ insistence that there’s nothing to see here and that anyhow, the fraud is nobody’s fault, the story is growing.
Late last month, independent YouTube journalist Nick Shirley ripped the cover off the scandal. His on-the-ground videos exposing phony child care centers in Minnesota, such as the one with the Quality “Learing” Center sign, have gone viral, with more than 125 million views. In response, the Trump administration has announced even more aggressive investigations and a freeze on federal child care funding to the Gopher State.
This is happening while the legacy media treat it as a nonstory. They are too busy dishing out irrelevant dirt from the Jeffrey Epstein files. It’s similar to the way fighter jets emit clouds of foil to confuse enemy radar.
Beyond Minnesota, Americans know something is deeply wrong.
This isn’t just about illegal immigration or astronomical government fraud. It’s about both. Many Americans are furious that they are not only losing their country to an alien culture because of one political party’s greed for power but they are also paying for it with their tax dollars. If they dare to complain, they are called racists.
This isn’t about race. It’s about bringing in people with unassimilable cultural values who then turn around and rip us off.
Despite some local Minnesota media coverage back in 2022, The New York Times broke the story nationally that year about some Somalis milking safety net programs erected for the COVID-19 pandemic. The FBI investigated groups overseen by Feeding Our Future, which billed the government tens of millions of dollars for nonexistent meals. More than 75 people were arrested and charged.
Other fraud schemes involved illicit Medicaid and housing payments and unfounded claims of autism, for which parents received kickbacks.
In 2024, the scandal wasn’t big enough to keep Mr. Walz off the Democratic ticket. By then, he was a super-good fraud fighter — and White male voter whisperer.
Last month, thanks to Mr. Shirley, the far bigger scandal broke open. The Department of Homeland Security has sent teams to Minnesota to investigate how fraudsters, mostly in the Somali community, were getting rich off the taxpayers.
The larger lesson here is something that Milton Friedman said in 1999: “You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.” Free benefits and an open border, as under President Biden, are magnets for an infinite stream of illegal aliens. This cannot be sustained.
This was the actual goal of two socialist economists, Richard Cloward and his wife, Frances Fox Piven, who crafted the Cloward-Piven strategy in the 1960s. Their idea was to overwhelm the welfare state with demands until it collapsed, forcing Americans to surrender to full socialism. Mr. Cloward has gone on to his reward, but Ms. Fox Piven, at 93, is still pushing her stuff onto credulous academics and students.
In June 2019, during the Democratic presidential primaries, the 10 candidates on stage, including Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, were asked to raise their hands if they supported giving “undocumented immigrants” access to government health care. All of them did.
Right now, “free” health care may not play as well. Obamacare has exponentially raised health care costs and health insurance premiums. Democrats are threatening again to shut down the government in late January if taxpayer subsidies are not renewed for their free stuff army.
In light of the burgeoning Minnesota scandal, the giveaways may be losing public support.
In an X post quoted in National Review, former Washington Post reporter David Weigel said, “Welfare liberalism can’t win if voters believe their money’s being stolen, and that liberals will let it happen to avoid being called racist.” That was exactly what happened in Minnesota and undoubtedly in a lot of other places.
This will keep hitting the fan as the Justice Department and the FBI look at more states that have had Democratic, one-party rule for decades, such as California and Illinois.
Just imagine what’s under some of those rocks.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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