Summary: A viral Dec. 26 video alleging day care fraud in Minnesota spurred conservative influencers to visit and film child care centers in at least seven other states. Many targeted facilities serve Somali communities, prompting accusations of racial profiling and harassment. Federal officials paused payments to Minnesota and local authorities responded to multiple complaints, while experts say the influencers’ methods — comparing cumulative subsidies to a single-day snapshot — can be misleading.
Viral Minnesota ‘Day Care Fraud’ Video Sparks Nationwide Visits — Officials Warn of Harassment and Racial Profiling
Leila Register / NBC News; Getty Images
A viral December video alleging day care fraud in Minnesota has prompted conservative influencers to visit and film child care centers across the United States, igniting a contentious national debate about amateur investigations, harassment and racial profiling.
What Happened
On Dec. 26, conservative content creator Nick Shirley posted a lengthy video alleging that some Minnesota child care sites were collecting state and federal subsidies while not operating as functioning businesses. The post has since drawn enormous attention — roughly 135 million views on X and additional millions on YouTube — and helped inspire copycat videos and in-person visits to facilities in at least seven other states, including Ohio, Washington, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Pennsylvania.
Who’s Involved
Several rising right-leaning creators, including Cam Higby and Jonathan Choe, have posted footage from doorstep interviews, stakeouts and short inspections. Many of the centers targeted in the viral footage serve communities with sizable Somali populations, and the influencers often spotlight Somali-run facilities. Some clips have been amplified by prominent conservative accounts and shared widely on social platforms.
Methods And Why Experts Criticize Them
The influencers typically compare long-term subsidy totals recorded in state databases with a single-day snapshot of how many children were present at a facility on one visit. Officials and analysts say that juxtaposition can be misleading because it ignores seasonal variation, part-time enrollments, attendance-reporting systems, and other normal operational patterns.
“There’s already a belief within the online faction that a thing has happened, and what is happening now is they are backfilling the belief with justification,” said Renée DiResta, who studies online political narratives.
Several creators acknowledge they have not found conclusive evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Higby, for example, has said his work is intended to highlight apparent inconsistencies rather than to prove fraud.
Official And Community Responses
Federal and local officials reacted quickly. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was freezing federal child care payments to Minnesota after the video drew national attention. State and municipal leaders — including Seattle’s mayor and Washington state officials — condemned the influencer visits as harassment and warned against filming minors or showing up uninvited at private homes or small businesses.
Police in several cities, including Columbus, Ohio, and Federal Way, Washington, responded to complaints about filming and confrontations; Columbus officials said officers fielded at least eight calls related to the encounters. Civil-rights and immigrant-advocacy groups have warned that the pattern of targeting Somali-run centers risks racial profiling and could weaponize isolated prosecutions into a broader harassment campaign.
Background: Minnesota Investigation
The attention traces back in part to a long-running federal investigation into day care fraud in Minnesota that has been active since at least 2022 and produced dozens of convictions. A portion of those prosecutions involved people of Somali descent, which has fed national attention — and in some cases, anti-immigrant rhetoric — directed at Somali communities.
Why Context Matters
State child-care agencies and advocates say many viral claims misunderstand how the sector operates. For example, in-home providers may not be required to publish full street addresses on public registries, and attendance systems often use PIN-based logs to verify drop-offs. Experts caution that short videos and single visits provide insufficient evidence to demonstrate systemic fraud.
What’s Next
The controversy has prompted calls for increased audits and unannounced inspections in some states, while also triggering legal and ethical debates about journalists’ methods and public safety. As creators replicate the Minnesota narrative elsewhere, officials and advocates urge careful verification before drawing broad conclusions or targeting entire communities.
Key facts: Viral Dec. 26 video by Nick Shirley drove a cascade of copycat investigations; influencers have focused on Somali-run centers in multiple states; HHS paused federal payments to Minnesota; experts warn the methods used can mislead and amount to harassment.
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