A politically charged YouTube video thrust a group of Somali-owned day cares in Minnesota into an uncomfortable spotlight this week, accusing the owners of defrauding the state and unleashing a torrent of threats against them.

A lawyer who represents one of the operators of Minnesota Best Childcare Center in Minneapolis, which was featured in the 43-minute video, said his Somali clients have received hundreds of death threats since the video went viral late late last week.

“Everybody is very scared right now of being targeted,” attorney Jason Steck said Dec. 31. “Nobody wants to stick their head up. Nobody wants to get shot.”

The video, which questioned whether there were any children at the facilities, has rocked the entire day care community in Minnesota. On Dec. 30, the Trump administration declared that it was freezing child care funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some day care centers partly in response to the claims made by the video’s creator, conservative influencer Nick Shirley.

Those funds, which help poor parents pay for child care while working, are a lifeblood for many day cares.

In his video, Shirley claimed that Somali day cares had defrauded the state by $111 million.

In response to those claims, state officials visited all 10 of the facilities featured in Shirley’s video earlier this week. The state has not yet released any details on the findings.

The Minnesota Star Tribune also visited all 10 facilities, and found children inside four of them when invited inside. Six other facilities were either closed or employees did not open their doors.

A Star Tribune review of state enforcement records and court filings shows that none of the individuals publicly identified as owners or operators of the 10 businesses have ever been charged with fraud or any other felonies. However, seven of the eight facilities with publicly available licensing records have been cited by the state for violations over the past four years, with some cited dozens of times.

Zak Osman allowed a Star Tribune reporter and photographer inside his business, Minnesota Child Care Center, on Dec. 30. The day care, among those featured on Shirley’s video, is tucked at the end of a long hallway in a cavernous building that also houses a restaurant and another child care center right across the hallway.

It’s not possible to see the children from the door where Shirley stood, but just down the hallway — painted with Disney characters — were three toy-lined rooms filled with sleeping Somali babies, toddlers and preschoolers.

A middle-aged woman watched over the children as a Somali lullaby played softly in the background. The facility is licensed for 102 children; about 50 were there.

The peaceful scene contrasted with the turmoil that has surrounded the Twin Cities’ Somali community amid a ballooning fraud scandal — across several social service programs — and anti-immigrant rhetoric from President Donald Trump. Each new allegation has added another layer of scrutiny.

Five of the 10 child care businesses Shirley featured in his video operated as meal sites for Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of a fraud scandal that has resulted in more than 50 convictions so far. Altogether, those five businesses received nearly $5 million from Feeding Our Future between 2018 and 2021, according to trial evidence.

None of the five businesses in Shirley’s video that received funds from Feeding Our Future have been accused of wrongdoing. Prosecutors have also said hundreds of people involved in the fraud may never be charged.

Earlier this year, Feeding Our Future leader Aimee Bock was convicted of seven crimes for her role in masterminding the scheme. A federal judge granted a $5.2 million forfeiture order against Bock on Dec. 30.

Minnesota Best Childcare Center, which was first licensed by the state in 2013, received $1.5 million from Feeding Our Future.

Fowsiya Hassan, identified in corporate filings as the chief executive officer of Minnesota Best, did not return calls for comment.

Earlier this year Hassan sued the state in federal court, claiming “selective” enforcement resulted in the closure of her former operation, Sunshine Child Care Center, after state officials raided the business as part of an overbilling fraud investigation.

Steck, the attorney representing Hassan, said his client was one of five Somali day care owners targeted in a series of raids in 2022 that led to the “temporary” suspension of state aid. In legal filings, Steck accused the government of deliberately dragging its feet in the investigation in order to force the closure of Hassan’s day care. He noted the investigation has yet to generate any fraud charges or other criminal filings.

“Obviously, there have to be fraud investigations, but it appears that only Somali day care centers were investigated initially for fraud,“ Steck said. ”That is called selective discriminatory enforcement.“

Attorneys for Gov. Tim Walz, who is a named defendant in the case, have sought dismissal of the federal lawsuit, claiming there was no discrimination because regulators were acting on “credible allegations of fraud.” That motion is pending.

A Star Tribune review of state licensing records shows that Minnesota Best has largely avoided problems in recent years, racking up just six violations since 2022.

By contrast, some of the other day cares featured in Shirley’s video have broken the rules dozens of times, records show. The facility cited the most: Quality Learning Center at 1411 Nicollet Av. in Minneapolis, cited for 121 violations in the past three years.

Quality executives did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

Earlier this week, the head of the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families said Quality shut down last week, but state officials later said the facility had reopened. The facility’s license was put on conditional status in 2022 after inspectors documented 27 violations, including 10 repeat infractions.

Quality has continued to struggle with compliance and in 2024 was cited for failing to report a “death, serious injury, fire or emergency as required,” records show. It has also been cited for multiple safety violations, including failing to properly supervise children and using crib mattresses that do not meet safety requirements.

At Minnesota Child Care Center, Osman’s day care where the children were napping this week, state records show the facility has had 62 violations since it was licensed in 2015, and has been fined twice for failing to do background checks on staffers. Two DHS violation notices about the background checks hung on a bulletin board in the lobby, as required.

On another floor downstairs, three rooms of school-age children sat at tables coloring and reading books, supervised by Somali women. Because school was out for winter break, there were more kids than usual.

The day care’s phones now ring nonstop from early in the morning to late at night, with people pretending to want to place their children there or threatening harm.

Osman said the doors are always locked for safety, and the staff was on high alert following the president’s threats to deport Somali people and escalation of federal immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities.

He said Shirley’s unannounced drop-in was “not intended to be a sincere approach.”

Shirley also went to ABC Learning Center in south Minneapolis on the same day in mid-December.

Director Ahmed Hasan said they’ve had similar visits from other “content creators,” but the others didn’t have enough followers to create the kind of chaos that Shirley did.

Hasan said Shirley, a man identified as “David” and a third man came to the front door while five more men waited in a van and car, some of them wearing masks.

Hasan said there were children inside, but they weren’t about to let strangers inside, given the recent immigration crackdown. They thought the masked men in the vehicles might be ICE agents.

Hasan said Shirley left soon after Hasan arrived, entering through a back door.

On Dec. 30, Hasan invited the Star Tribune and other media outlets into the facility, where about 30 children of varying ages were visible.

“There’s always children inside,” Hasan said.

A woman from a neighboring home health care agency showed the Star Tribune video footage of children coming and going on Dec. 16.

Kevin Brown, who lives two blocks away and owns a business next door to ABC Learning Center, said he often sees kids at the center.

He saw Shirley’s video and came over to the daycare Dec. 30 when he saw TV cameras there.

“I don’t like the idea of people coming from out of town, coming into our neighborhood and making assumptions without talking to people and getting the facts,” he said. “That’s the definition of fake news.”

Hasan said it’s easy to target Somalis after Trump called them “garbage.” But, he said, child care is highly regulated in Minnesota, with repayment required for billing errors.

State records show the facility was first licensed in 2019, with a total capacity of 40. It has had 28 violations since then, with one $200 fine for failing to do a background check on two staffers.

After Shirley’s video went viral, people began stopping by and calling as early as 5 a.m. and as late as midnight. They get calls from people from all over the country saying things like “We’re coming” and “ICE, ICE baby.”

“These people are very angry,” Hasan said, as he played some of the voicemails.

Recently, he left work at 1 a.m. to find someone waiting in the parking lot.

Part-owner Umi Hassan said she lived here right after 9/11 and didn’t feel as marginalized and fearful as she does today. She’s unable to sleep at night and carries her passport everywhere.

Tears running down her face, she asked, “What else can I do to be an American?”

_____

©2025 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC