The move taken by HHS concerns Somali-run day care centers that are allegedly benefiting from government payments issued by the Administration for Children and Families. The Trump administration alleges the centers in question are stealing money directly from children.
In a video, HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill and ACF Assistant Secretary Alex Adams said they took three direct actions to combat the alleged child care fraud.
First, the department is now requiring justification and receipt or photo evidence of all ACF payments in Minnesota and the rest of the country.
Secondly, HHS demanded Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) provide a comprehensive audit of the day care centers. O’Neill said the audit will include attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations, and inspections.
Thirdly, HHS launched a dedicated hotline and email address to report suspected child care fraud.
In a subsequent post, O’Neill said the frozen funds will be released “when states prove they are being spent legitimately.”
Walz suggested HHS’s actions were politically motivated.
“This is Trump’s long game. We’ve spent years cracking down on fraudsters,” he wrote on X. “It’s a serious issue — but this has been his plan all along. He’s politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”
The Democratic governor maintains his administration has taken steps to crack down on fraud by referring cases to law enforcement and shutting down or auditing certain programs. Despite his efforts, he has faced intense criticism from Minnesota Republicans and the Trump administration on the fraud issue since late November.
Minnesota’s day care system recently came under scrutiny following a viral video that shed light on the state’s fraud scandal. O’Neill credited independent journalist Nick Shirley for making the video.
Adams said his office provides Minnesota with $185 million in child care funds annually, estimating that 19,000 American children are meant to benefit from that amount of money.
After speaking with the director of Minnesota Child Care Services, Adams said he was not told with “confidence whether those allegations of fraud are isolated or whether there’s fraud stretching statewide.”
Commissioner Tikki Brown of the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families revealed that while no fraud has been found at child day care centers in the state so far, her office is investigating the centers again in response to Shirley’s video.
“While we have questions about some of the methods that were used in the video, we do take the concerns that the video raises about fraud very seriously,” Brown said on Monday. “Each of the facilities mentioned in the video has been visited at least once in the last six months as part of our typical licensing process, and in fact, our staff are out in the community today to visit each of these sites again so that we can look into the concerns that were raised in the video.”
