USA (Parliament Politics Magazine) – The Trump administration has frozen federal childcare funding in Minnesota following fraud allegations that gained renewed attention in conservative media.
In a video statement, Jim O’Neill, the deputy secretary of health and human services, described the funding block as a reaction to
“blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country.”
We are identifying the fraud and have shut off the money spigot.
The revelation was made the day after homeland security officers visited Minneapolis businesses to question employees about suspected fraud in response to a new surge of attention sparked by a right-wing influencer’s video broadcast.
There have been years of fraud investigations, which started in 2022 when 47 individuals were indicted for their suspected roles, despite claims made by conservatives on social media that the allegations of fraud were disregarded up until this point.
57 individuals who embezzled government monies given to the nonprofit organization Feeding Our Future were ultimately found guilty by prosecutors.
Earlier in December, a federal prosecutor said that at least half of the approximately $18 billion in federal monies that have been used to support 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been pilfered. They said that Somali Americans make up the majority of the defendants.
The accusations against dozens of Somali Americans have been exploited by Donald Trump to further his long-standing grudge against Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat who represents the state in Congress, and to further his calls for a ban on refugees from Somalia.
Omar has advised against holding a community as a whole responsible for the deeds of a small number of people.
In the social media post, O’Neill also stated that
“justification and a receipt or photo evidence”
will now be needed before funds are issued countrywide through the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the health department. According to him, the department has also established an email address and hotline for reporting fraud.
The senior health official gave credit to right-wing personality Nick Shirley, who last week uploaded a video of himself confronting employees at Somali American-run daycare facilities in Minneapolis. Shirley’s video, which received a lot of attention online, has come under fire for misrepresenting claims of fraud schemes.
According to O’Neill, he has insisted that Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, provide an audit of daycare facilities that covers licenses, attendance records, complaints, investigations, and inspections.
“This is Trump’s long game,”
Walz wrote on social media in response to the announcement from O’Neill,
“We’ve spent years cracking down on fraudsters. It’s a serious issue – but this has been his plan all along. He’s politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”
When questioned about the matter last year, Walz, the Democratic contender for vice president in 2024, stated that fraud will not be accepted and that his government
“will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.”
An audit scheduled for late January, according to Walz, who has always supported his administration’s response, should provide a clearer picture of the scope of the theft. He claimed that in order to stop more fraud, his administration is acting decisively.
What specific federal programs are affected by the freeze?
The Trump administration’s snap specifically targets civil childcare backing allocated to Minnesota through the Child Care and Development Fund( CCDF) and related Head Start programs under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services( HHS).
CCDF provides subventions for low- income families’ childcare, totaling $185 million annually for Minnesota serving about 19,000 children; the halt includes block subventions for provider remitments and quality advancements, stemming from examinations into fraudulent claims at Somali- run centers.
HHS also flagged implicit issues in child nutrition( e.g., CACFP) and early education subventions tied to the same providers, demanding checkups before resumption; this builds on Biden- period persuasions in the $300 million Feeding Our unborn reproach involving analogous civil aqueducts.
