adminMinnesota is facing a scandal that should make every taxpayer furious: investigators say multiple state benefit programs were riddled with fraud, with allegations that tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars flowed through schemes tied to actors within the Somali community. From the Feeding Our Future school meal scandal to explosive problems in Medicaid autism services and the Housing Stabilization Services program, reports now suggest the scale of the theft is enormous and growing.
This isn’t merely a few bad apples — it is the predictable outcome when state officials roll out sprawling welfare programs with little oversight and politicians look the other way. Federal authorities and reporting show programs meant to help vulnerable people ballooned in cost while oversight lagged, forcing federal agencies to pause enrollments and investigators to step in. The buck stops with those who ran the system and the elected officials who green-lit it.
Law-enforcement sources have raised the chilling possibility that some of the money taken was funneled abroad through hawala networks, and that it may have reached dangerous hands in Somalia. Those are grave allegations that deserve immediate, full-throated federal investigation — not excuses or hand-wringing. Americans have a right to know if their dollars intended for kids and struggling families were siphoned off and sent overseas.
For too long the political class in Minnesota has treated fraud as a side issue while lecturing taxpayers about compassion. That posture must end; compassion without accountability is theft. Prosecutors have already brought indictments in some cases, but there must be far more auditing, prosecutions, and restitution so that victims — the taxpayers — are made whole.
When commentators like Lidia Curanaj warn that “immigration without assimilation is an invasion,” they are voicing a concern too many officials refuse to confront: the survival of our civic culture depends on newcomers adopting our laws, language, and norms. Honest conservatives know we can be both welcoming and demanding — welcoming of hard work and contribution, demanding of loyalty to the rule of law and basic civic duties. Policy that encourages dependency while ignoring assimilation backfires on every community.
Local officials and many residents rightly defend hardworking Somali neighbors who contribute to the economy and to small-town life, and that distinction matters: nobody should tar an entire community for the crimes of some. But defending the innocent does not mean shielding the guilty; Minnesota can and must hold bad actors accountable while preserving the freedoms and opportunities that make this country great.
The remedy is straightforward and patriotic: immediate federal audits of suspect programs, criminal referrals where evidence supports it, and a wholesale reform of how welfare programs are overseen and paid. Voters should demand answers from Gov. Walz and every state official who allowed these programs to operate without real checks. If we do not protect taxpayers and insist on assimilation and accountability, our republic pays the price.
