Not so long ago, an alleged “reporter” named Nick Shirley started publishing a bunch of videos on YouTube alleging a massive amount of fraud being committed in the Minneapolis region, mostly by Somalians involving day care and other businesses receiving public funds. Shirley’s videos ignited a right-wing firestorm, with calls from conservatives all the way up to the White House for the federal government to intervene, and now. On the left, the response was more divided. Some pointed out that Shirley was going to supposed fraudulent daycares outside of business hours, and others yet pointing out that no daycare is going to let in some random young man demanding to “see the kids.” Some others said fine though, investigate it. The story took on a life of it’s own then.

Nearly right after that, Donald Trump called for an investigation and blamed Governor Tim Walz for everything. Then the Department of Homeland Security loudly announced *they* were going to Minneapolis, namely in the form of ICE. What happened next has been on your news since- multiple citizens shot dead, clashes in the street with protestors, and chaos on a scale that Americans generally won’t accept as normal. In short, things are out of hand, regardless of your political beliefs, or who you blame.

There’s a problem with this chronology though, in fact there are two. First, the investigation into the fraud ring in Minneapolis began in 2022, when the FBI raided numerous locations associated with the nonprofit “Feeding Our Future,” 47 defendants were charged in September of 2022, with 78 charged according to the best information I have to this date. Once this investigation opened, it blossomed into other areas, namely child care, emergency housing, and Medicaid. To this date, 98 people have been charged and over 60 convicted of crimes in this scandal, according to the House Oversight Committee GOP report, the majority of this happening before Donald Trump took office. The ring leader, Aimee Bock, was convicted in March of 2025. Many convictions started happening in 2024. In short, Shirley didn’t expose anything new. He went up there and stirred up an ongoing case that was largely a dormant story.

The second problem with this entire story though is that we seem to have a collective inability to understand who investigates crime. Domestic crime in the United States is investigated by the FBI and the Department of Justice. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security certainly have law enforcement powers, but they are largely over foreign nationals who don’t have a legal reason to be in the United States. A massive fraud ring, while quite serious, is an issue for the Department of Justice, not immigration authorities. They have different capabilities and do different things. DOJ has been investigating this case for close to four years, and has been charging and convicting the people who committed fraud. ICE has nothing to do with that. Their presence in Minneapolis is not aiding in that investigation. Yes, they have arrested 1,000 people in these raids in the city. Those people are guilty of immigration violations (and possibly other stuff, but that’s not ICE’s area). One can have a good faith argument over how we should enforce immigration law (I don’t find it legitimate to say we just shouldn’t). One should not be mixing that with the fraud investigation though. The only crossover here is that Somalians here in America are being targeted in both. That is more a product of who is involved in the fraud cases than some sort of conclusion we should be reaching.

What is going in Minneapolis for the past month is not really about a legitimately bad fraud ring. That’s been going on by the proper authorities. ICE is there to carry out Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportation. They want to find whatever percentage of the Somali community that is illegal, and deport them. I think it is also clear the goal was to cause mass protests and uprising, to create the conflict we are seeing in the streets. Trump would like to use this as a way to “get tough” on liberal cities like Minneapolis, to appease his base. In the end though, the reasoning is less important and less provable, than the reality- this has nothing to do with a fraud investigation. Donald Trump can explain why he did it. My point is why he didn’t- fraud. The fraud was being handled correctly by the dedicated agents of law enforcement, for which we’re all grateful. Whatever the hell this is now is completely the arbitrary decision of a mad man.