Nick Shirley posted this now-viral video on Dec. 26 and it has taken the internet by storm with more than 135 million views on X alone!
This video is powerful because it doesn’t tell you a story; instead, it shows you the story and lets you draw your own conclusions.
I encourage everyone to watch the video. If you haven’t already, I will summarize it for you.
The video shows us government-funded businesses that Somalis run. The vast majority of these are daycare centers, but home healthcare and non-emergency transportation companies are also discussed.
The video starts with Shirley meeting a man who is identified as David, who reports that his office is in Minneapolis, in the area of many day care centers, and that he has never seen any children at the day care centers, only men outside smoking.
The real action starts when Nick and David jump in a car to see how much fraud they can uncover in one afternoon! The first stop is at an address that houses two daycare centers. Together, they are licensed for a total of 120 children. The two centers have received a total of $5,242,191 since 2020.
Imagine the amount of noise you would encounter with 120 children in a daycare, as a good portion of them will be playing outside at any given time. The first impression you have of the building is that it is industrial in nature, with blacked-out windows. There is no playground, and the doors are locked. No one answers, and it doesn’t appear to be open, despite the sign stating it is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. There is no sign of any child, let alone 120 of them. Nick reports he has never seen a child there in nine years.
It was the same story at the other day care centers until they arrived at the now infamous Quality Learing Center, which is licensed for 99 children and received $1.9 million in 2025. (Yes, the word Learning is misspelled at the learning center.) A neighborhood man reports he has lived there since 2017 and has never seen a child at the center. There are no windows, and the door is blacked out.
The state commissioner in charge of licensing daycare, Tikke Brown, reported that the Quality Learing Center permanently closed one week ago. However, when the press showed up at the center, children were being dropped off. The manager claimed their hours were from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., which is why no children were seen. Minnesota requires day cares to be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Unsurprisingly, the state commissioner has no idea what is going on at the day care centers.
Another interesting stop was at Super Kids Day Care. Originally, there was a day care called Creative Minds Daycare. According to David, it was closed for violations and reopened the next day as Super Kids. There were no children or employees on site during the visit.
There was also a stop at a building that contained 14 assorted healthcare businesses, and when Nick asked for pricing, the Minneapolis police were called and escorted them out. It was a surreal moment when journalists were forced out of a building when they were exercising their right to freedom of the press.
The video ends with the statement “In 1 day we uncovered an estimated $111 million worth of fraud”.
This video allows us all to see the buildings, the people, and their response to the questions.
The mainstream media was in a panic and tried to immediately discredit Nick Shirley instead of addressing the issues he raised in the Somali community in Minnesota.
The federal government has moved swiftly in response to Nick Shirley’s video. It is freezing all payments to child care centers until the state can prove the funds are being spent legitimately.
The Child Care Assistance Program, or CCAP, funds the day care centers. This program is a joint federal and state program, and the federal government contributes $185 million. The federal portion of the program is substantial and comes from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
On Dec. 30, Jim O’Neill, the deputy secretary of HHS, released a statement that all child care payments to Minnesota would be frozen.
He then outlined three immediate actions that HHS is taking to stem the fraud in Minnesota and all states. These include:
All payments for childcare services will require a justification and a receipt or photo evidence before HHS sends money to the state.
Gov. Tim Walz must audit all day care centers mentioned in the Nick Shirley video.
HHS has launched a fraud-reporting hotline and email at childcare.gov, where anyone can report fraud.
These are all excellent moves, and it is shocking to me that the federal government has been sending money to the states without verifying the legitimacy of recipients and vendors.
The problem with the CCAP program is that the federal government sends money to the state, and the states determine eligibility and manage the program. Up to 90% of the funding comes from the federal government. Having one entity pay for the majority of the program, and another determine who is eligible, encourages fraud.
This video has encouraged more citizen journalists throughout the country. The rampant social services and Medicaid fraud isn’t limited to Minnesota, and we will need the citizen journalist to take up the challenge that the mainstream media has ignored.
The fraud concerns in MN aren’t limited to the day care centers and also include non-medical programs under Medicaid.
Medicaid is a joint federal and state program, and states can obtain a Section 1115 waiver and have Medicaid fund non-medical programs. Often, the federal government will pick up 90 percent of the costs. Placing social welfare programs in Medicaid makes them an entitlement program, with no need for annual appropriations and funding never getting turned off.
Minnesota Assistant US Attorney Joe Thompson held an explosive press conference on Dec. 18. He stated that he estimates the total amount of Medicaid fraud since 2018 is $9 billion out of a total of $18 billion. This fraud occurs in non-medical Medicaid programs. These programs don’t require providers to be medical professionals, which makes them high-risk for fraud.
The high-risk services include:
- Housing Stabilization
- Adult Companion
- Assertive Community Treatment
- Intensive Residential Treatment
- Adult Day Services
- Recuperative Care
- Integrated Community
- Peer Recovery
- PCA/Community First
- Non-emergency Medical Transport
- Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health
- Autism Services
- Night Supervision
- Individualized Home
Thompson described the level of fraud as industrial in nature and reports that Minnesota has attracted fraud tourists. Two men visited Minnesota to set up fraudulent housing programs, believing that taxpayer money could be taken with minimal risk or consequence.
The Somali community was also involved in the COVID-19 era fraud in childhood nutrition programs.
The US Dept. of Agriculture funds the Federal Child Nutrition Program. The rules for this program were relaxed during COVID, and the Feeding Our Future non-profit took full advantage of this. This non-profit committed a $250 million fraud scheme in which the money wasn’t used to feed children but to purchase luxury vehicles, commercial and residential real estate, both in the U.S. and abroad, and to fund international travel. To date, 56 defendants have pleaded guilty in the Feeding Our Future Fraud case.
This video has encouraged more citizen journalists throughout the country. The rampant social services fraud isn’t limited to Minnesota, and we will need the citizen journalist to take up the challenge that the mainstream media has ignored. We need to ensure that all taxpayers feel confident that their hard-earned money is used wisely and not fraudulently.
