The Somali Fraud Story Busts Liberal Myths

Mass immigration, antiracism, and the welfare state lead inexorably to fraud.

There is a moment when every news story either achieves lift-off or tumbles back to the earth. Having covered a few that drove national headlines, I’ve discovered there is no universal formula for which ones hit the stratosphere, and which do not.

Our recent story detailing Minnesota’s Somali fraud rings has been one of the lucky ones, achieving liftoff in record time. City Journal reporter Ryan Thorpe and I summarized a decade of Somali fraud schemes that stole billions of taxpayer dollars, some of which ended up with Al-Shabaab terrorists back in Somalia. These were sophisticated criminal enterprises that exploited Minnesota’s generous welfare state, deployed accusations of racism to deter scrutiny, and looted the public treasury until local prosecutors did the hard work to bring them down.

The meta-story—how a news item weaves its way through public discourse—is also worth considering. When we published the story, it quickly dominated the conversation on conservative social media. It filtered upward to primetime Fox News, where, on Laura Ingraham’s program, I summarized the piece and called on President Trump to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for all Somalis in Minnesota.

Within hours, the president, who had been following the story, announced that he would revoke TPS for all Somali recipients. Then, over the Thanksgiving holiday, Trump raised the stakes with a blistering social media tirade that ripped into Somali fraudsters, accused Minnesota governor Tim Walz of mental deficiencies, and promised to stop all asylum cases and immigration from the Third World. This sequence of events turned the Minnesota fraud into the debate of the moment.

The next step in the process is for the liberal media to respond. Right on cue, CBS News published a story misrepresenting our report and “debunking” that misrepresentation—a claim that it eventually retracted under pressure. The New York Times did somewhat better, publishing a long feature on the Somali fraud, confirming key details, and opening the floodgates for discourse on the center-left. The spotlight thus turned to Governor Walz, who was at the helm when Somali thieves robbed Minnesota of billions.

On the surface, the Times story was an acknowledgment that this was a real scandal that the liberal press had missed. But the paper did not address the underlying narrative about why the fraud happened. Yes, the story is about a criminal enterprise, but it runs deeper than that. The story has touched a nerve because it busts liberal myths about immigration, anti-racism, and the welfare state.

Minnesota has long prided itself on its generous welfare programs and reputation for good governance. But after the mass arrival of the new Somali population—many of whom brought with them different attitudes toward government and civil society—these programs became a weak point. George Floyd’s 2020 death in Minneapolis demonstrated that scrutiny could be deflected by making baseless accusations of “racism” against anyone who raised questions about the missing funds.

The uncomfortable truth for Times readers is that all cultures are not equal. Therefore, not all cultures are compatible with all political systems. In this case, the Somali criminal enterprise is incompatible with a generous welfare state, particularly in the context of a racial politics that intimidates whistleblowers and other honest brokers.

Though this story was particular to Minnesota, disruptive mass immigration is a national phenomenon. During the four years of the Biden administration, America imported millions of foreigners, many illegally. Some of these have brought, or are trying to bring, negative aspects of their home culture to the United States.

Indeed, cultural incompatibility was a campaign theme during the 2024 election. Venezuelan gangs took over apartment buildings in Colorado. Haitian migrants overwhelmed deindustrialized towns in the Rust Belt. The Somali fraud story is another point in this plotline.

The Trump administration claims to be on pace to “shatter” records of forced deportations and so-called self-deportations, but more must be done. The administration should put financial restrictions on illegal immigrants, like requiring proof of legal status for maintaining a bank account; and implement massive remittance taxes to reduce the profitability of illegal immigration and fraud. And it must line up the manpower to turbocharge the prosecution of immigrant fraud, in Minnesota and elsewhere.

The New York Times won’t spell it out in block print, but even devoted liberals are starting to ask questions about the welfare state’s combability with mass migration. The shocking scope and scale of the Somali fraud in Minnesota made this a story that could no longer be ignored.