It all began after a viral video alleging fraud in Somali-run child care centers in Minneapolis: strangers peering through windows, right-wing journalists showing up outside homes, influencers hurling false accusations.
In San Diego, child care provider Samsam Khalif was spooked by two men with a camera waiting in a car parked outside, prompting her to circle the block several times before unloading the children.
“I’m scared. I don’t know what their intention is,” said Khalif, who decided to install additional security cameras outside her home.
Somali-run child care centers across the United States have become targets since the video caught the attention of the White House amid the administration’s immigration crackdown. Child care providers worry about how they can maintain the safe learning environments they have worked to create for impressionable young children who may be spending their first days away from their parents.
In the Minneapolis area, child care providers, many of them immigrants, say they’re being antagonized, exacerbating the stress they face from immigration enforcement activity that has engulfed the city.
One child care provider said she watched someone emerge from a car that had been circling the building and defecate near the center’s entrance. The same day, a motorist driving by yelled that the center was a “fake day care.” She’s had to create new lockdown procedures and now keeps the blinds closed to shield children from unwanted visitors and from witnessing immigration enforcement actions.
“I can’t have peace of mind about whether the center will be safe today,” said the provider, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted. “That’s a hard pill to swallow.”
How the focus on Somali child care centers started
The day after Christmas, right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a lengthy video with explosive allegations that members of Minneapolis’s large Somali community were running fake child care centers so they could collect federal child care subsidies.
The U.S. has occasionally seen fraud cases related to child care subsidies, but the video’s central claims — that business owners were billing the government for children they were not caring for — have been disproven by inspectors. Nonetheless, the administration attempted to freeze child care funding for Minnesota and five other Democratic-led states until a court ordered the funding to be released.
Child care advocates say the fraud allegations are detracting from other, more pressing crises. Child care subsidy programs in many states have lengthy waiting lists, making it difficult for parents to return to work. The programs that subsidize child care for families struggling to afford it are also facing funding threats, including from the current administration. Ruth Friedman, a former chief of the Office of Child Care, accused politicians of manufacturing a crisis for political gain.
Local officials have begun to respond, with Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson stating she will not tolerate harassment of Somali child care providers. Meanwhile, Ohio's Republican Governor Mike DeWine assured citizens of state oversight of child care centers and emphasized that a refusal to let strangers in should not automatically be viewed as suspicious.
As tensions continue to rise, child care advocates warn that the focus on fraud claims is deflecting from essential systemic reforms and resources desperately needed within the child care sector.
