A day after the U.S. deputy secretary of Health and Human Services announced on social media that federal childcare funds for Minnesota were being frozen, a spokesperson for the department said that instead, reporting requirements had been tightened across the country.
Officials in President Donald Trump's administration had singled out Minnesota in social media statements on Tuesday, ramping up what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, characterized as a political confrontation over immigration and allegations of widespread fraud in social services programs.
"We have frozen all childcare payments to the state of Minnesota," Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill said on X on Tuesday. He named three steps he said the department was taking: requiring more documentation for ACF (Administration for Children & Families) payments across the country; demanding an audit of childcare centers that were the focus of fraud accusations in a video circulating on the internet; and establishing a hotline and email address that members of the public can use to report fraud.
The spokesperson said those three steps were the extent of the department's actions and that no payments to Minnesota had been frozen.
The spokesperson said childcare centers suspected of fraud would have to provide documentation of attendance records, complaints from parents and other matters to receive funding. Centers not suspected of fraud would have to provide data to the federal government that they likely already had been giving to the state, so were unlikely to face funding delays.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison nonetheless expressed concern on Wednesday.
"The Trump administration is threatening funding for the essential childcare services that countless families across Minnesota rely on -- apparently all on the basis of one video on social media," Ellison said. "To say I am outraged is an understatement."
"My team and I are exploring all our legal options to ensure that critical childcare services do not get abruptly slashed based on pretext and grandstanding," the attorney general added.
Assistant Secretary Alex Adams, who oversees the department's Administration for Children & Families, referred on social media to $185 million in annual childcare funds for Minnesota, the amount the state received in the last fiscal year for its Child Care and Development Fund, according to agency records.
Walz said on X that Trump was "using an issue he doesn't give a damn about as an excuse to hurt working Minnesotans."
"We've spent years cracking down on fraudsters," Walz added.
The Trump administration has in recent weeks focused on Minnesota, alleging rampant fraud is being committed by immigrants in the welfare system. Administration officials have frequently and sharply criticized the state's Somali community, the largest in the country, as well as Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, and Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali American who represents a Minneapolis-based district in Congress.
Trump repeated such rhetoric on Truth Social on Wednesday, a day after O'Neill posted on social media about the daycare funding freeze.
FBI DEPLOYED PERSONNEL TO MINNESOTA
U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz issued an ultimatum this month, calling on Walz to address what he said was systemic fraud in the state's Medicaid system.
The FBI has deployed personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota to "dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs," Director Kash Patel said on Sunday on social media.
The Trump administration has tried to block a wide range of federal aid this year to pressure states to comply with its immigration crackdown, including disaster aid and transportation funding. Many of those attempts have been struck down in court, including an effort that sought to ban some immigrant children from preschool programs.
The administration has successfully slashed foreign aid, diversity grants and other types of funding.
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