U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement officials tally rising arrests of undocumented migrants in Minnesota as the agency ramps up operations after the discovery of a major fraud scandal involving the state's immigrant Somali population.
Governor Tim Walz (D), former running-mate to ex-Vice President Kamala Harris, has come under fire after state officials disclosed a staggering percentage of fraudulent claims from the state's Medicaid program.
The scheme alleges that a large portion of these claims originated from the state's largely insulated Somali population, by which hundreds of millions of dollars were reportedly stolen from a federally funded nutrition program.
Federal prosecutors place the number at around $1 billion in fraudulent medicaid benefits, and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill allege that several schemes have totaled the number of losses in the billions.
The House Oversight Committee and the Government Reform Committee announced last week that they are launching an investigation into the governor's potential involvement in the scandal.
Governor Walz has denied any knowledge of the scheme and rejected accusations that his administration refused to investigate the matter after state employees pushed for the governor's mansion to assign an audit into the program.
Critics of the former vice presidential candidate, however, remain skeptical.
"Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was warned about massive fraud in a pandemic food-aid program for children, yet he failed to act. Instead, whistleblowers who raised concerns faced retaliation", House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, told the New York Post.
In July, federal prosecutor Joe Thompson stated that the scheme centered around the state's COVID-era food subsidy program–Housing Stabilization Services (HSS)–which was designed to offer Medicaid coverage to provide housing for those in need.
By 2025, the costs for the program had ballooned, and eventually declared no longer solvent. Thompson announced that the program was mostly fraudulent and has since charged dozens of people with criminal indictments connected with the scheme.
Shortly after news broke of the scandal in Minnesota, ICE officials also stepped up operations in the state, focusing their efforts in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
The total number of Somali residents in the state remains unclear, but local Somali community leaders who reside on-the-ground, claim that the number is closer to 160,000, many of whom have undocumented status.
The majority of residents of the Somali community live in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
Local reporters in Minneapolis say that the community has witnessed a heavier presence of federal immigration officials since December, noting what ICE officials are calling "Operation Metro Surge".
Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Kristi Noem, said in a news release that agents were going after "the worst of the worst", which included men from Somalia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
