How Minnesota Became the Land of 10,000 Frauds

by Matthew Continetti

 Federal prosecutors have charged dozens of people, many from Minnesota's Somali community, for defrauding the state's welfare programs. Does the outrage suggest that the GOP can win the debate over reforming America's systems for public assistance?

The numbers out of Minnesota are staggering: Three separate plots to bilk welfare programs. Fifty-nine federal convictions. More than $1 billion stolen from taxpayers. Of 86 people charged so far, all but eight are of Somali descent.

The scandal has seized headlines and put Gov. Tim Walz, seeking a third term, on the defensive. It’s huge, brazen and entangled with the seamy politics of migration and assimilation. President Trump has weighed in with characteristic subtlety: “We don’t want them in our country,” he said of Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar and “her friends” during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting. “Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”

The massive fraud shows there is plenty to fix in America. What’s unfolding in Minnesota is sensational but not unusual. Ripping off the taxpayer has become a national pastime. The needy deserve support, but when entitlements become ends in themselves, they invite criminality and dependence.

The nobler the cause, the nastier the graft. Since 2020, when Washington turned on the spigots to counter effects of the pandemic, government-benefits fraud cases have increased 242%. According to the Government Accountability Office, from 2020 to 2023 the amount of fraud in unemployment-insurance programs was between $100 billion and $135 billion. In June, the Justice Department announced charges against 324 defendants in schemes involving $14.6 billion in healthcare fraud. Last month a Miami grand jury indicted Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and others on charges of stealing $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency relief and laundering the money into her campaign. The Democratic congresswoman pleaded not guilty.

Minnesota fits the pattern. In 2022 federal investigators noticed unusual activity in a program to serve meals to children during the pandemic. Empire Cuisine & Market, a small halal grocery in Shakopee, Minn., claimed to be feeding thousands of children daily. Abdimajid Mohamed Nur pocketed close to $1 million by submitting lists of fake names and food sites to the Federal Child Nutrition Program. He spent the money on a Dodge Ram, jewelry and a honeymoon in the Maldives. In 2024 Mr. Nur was sentenced to 120 months in prison.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-minnesota-became-the-land-of-10-000-frauds-6602e137