Day cares say they are unfairly punished over misleading Minnesota video

Day care operators say the Trump administration’s restrictions on federal child care funding unfairly punish them over a conservative activist’s fraud allegations against Minnesota centers that are undercut by state records and disputed by some of the owners.

YouTuber Nick Shirley recently went to nine federally subsidized day care centers in Minneapolis, many operated by Somali Americans. In a 42-minute video of his visits that went viral last week, he claimed that the centers weren’t caring for any children because none could be seen entering or exiting the buildings.

In response, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cut off funds to the centers until they undergo extensive auditing and announced stricter verification measures for child care funds nationwide.

Minnesota state regulators visited the centers within the past 10 months and saw children, according to state officials and records, undermining claims that they are fraudulent businesses.

One day care manager told The Washington Post that security camera footage showed Shirley visiting her facility when it was closed. Another day care director said staff didn’t open the door in part because they assumed Shirley and six or seven men with him, some masked, were from Immigration and Customs Enforcement - which launched an operation in early December focused on Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis area.

Ahmed Hasan, director of ABC Learning Center, said the YouTuber showed up at the front entrance around noon on Dec. 16. During the winter, most parents use the back entrance and Shirley stayed no more than a few minutes, he said.

“There were kids here all the time,” Hasan said. “I was also here.”

Hasan said his day care serves about 56 children, most from low-income East African families. It was last visited by a state regulator on Nov. 7. Since the video went viral, people have flooded his center’s phones with harassing calls, threatening to have him arrested or call ICE, he said.

Ayan Jama, manager at Mini Childcare Center, said her day care has also received threatening phone calls, including a bomb threat, and people have attempted to break in. She said Shirley visited in the morning before her center opened. Its typical hours are 12:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. to serve mostly Somali children after school while their parents work in the afternoons and evenings, she said.

“Why not come during operating hours?” she said. “This is a targeted attack on our community.”

Jama, whose business was last visited by a regulator on June 11, said she won’t be able to keep her doors open if federal funds, which account for 90 percent of her revenue, aren’t restored.

Of the seven other day care centers featured in Shirley’s video, five didn’t return requests for comment on Wednesday, the mailbox was full for a sixth, and multiple calls to a seventh resulted in a busy signal.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said the administration is threatening funding for child care services “apparently all on the basis of one video on social media.”

“To say I am outraged is an understatement,” Ellison said in a statement Wednesday.

HHS said federal child care dollars, which help families with low incomes pay for care, will be frozen to the centers under suspicion until they release extensive documents, including attendance records, inspection reports and complaints. HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the agency has “a clear duty to verify the proper use of taxpayer funds.”

“The documentation process exists to rule out fraud and confirm that funds are supporting legitimate child care providers,” he said in a statement. “Any provider operating should be prepared to demonstrate compliance.”

The action comes amid state and federal fraud investigations of 14 Minnesota-run safety net programs, including for child nutrition, housing and autism assistance. President Donald Trump, Republican lawmakers, and conservative activists and media outlets have cited the involvement of Somali Americans to blast the immigrant group. Trump said in a Cabinet meeting last month that he doesn’t want Somali immigrants in the United States and referred to them as “garbage.”

Around three dozen people gathered Wednesday at the Minnesota Capitol to express opposition to the child care funding restrictions, holding signs that said “No child care, no workforce” and “Fund care not fear.”

“Let’s be honest about how we really got here: Our president decided he doesn’t like the Somali community and he wants to destroy them,” said Amanda Schillinger, a Minnesota child care provider, to a loud chorus of boos.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) posted on social media Tuesday that Trump was “politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”

State Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn (D), co-chair of the House Children and Families Finance and Policy Committee, said the state has been actively working for years to put safeguards in place against fraud.

“It’s incredibly frustrating to me that Donald Trump and the Republicans want to use this as a political vehicle to cut funding to our state,” she said.

Eight of the day care centers depicted in Shirley’s video have received multiple violations by state regulators. ABC Learning Center was cited for deficiencies, which Hasan said were corrected and described as common among day cares, such as not having food menus with proper nutritional requirements and not having an individual care plan for a child with a known allergy.

The ninth center in Shirley’s video - Super Kids Daycare Center - had its license activated Oct. 1 and shares the same address as another day care center whose license expired that same day and previously received violations.

The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families did not return requests for comment after the Trump administration announced its funding freeze.

The scrutiny on the nine day care centers in Shirley’s video has nationwide implications, because all day care centers will have to submit more documentation to HHS before receiving child care funds. The new guidelines, while still unclear, mirror “defend the spend” requirements that briefly went into effect in April before they were stopped, child welfare policy analysts said. For a few weeks, states seeking to draw down money to reimburse day cares were asked to upload additional details on why the payments were justified.

That effort significantly delayed payments to providers, said Stephanie Schmit, director of child care and early education at the nonpartisan Center for Law and Social Policy.

If the new documentation requirements are the same or more onerous, providers that are chronically underfunded will struggle to keep their doors open, she said.

“We already know that child care providers don’t have a lot of additional time to do things like this,” Schmit said.

Parents have been peppering Minnesota day care centers with questions, worried the facilities will be shut down and they will be left without child care, said Clare Sanford, a government relations chair for the Minnesota Child Care Association, which represents more than 300 centers across the state.

“Any disruption can quickly set off a cascade of job loss, housing loss - a scary spiral,” Sanford said.

Sanford said the viral video was misleading. For example, day care centers often lock their front doors for safety reasons, and it is not unusual for employees to not answer a door if they are caring for children and not expecting a visitor, she said.

If an employee opens a door, children might not be visible, because day care centers keep them in classrooms, away from entrances, she said.

Shirley did not return requests for comment Wednesday evening.

Officials are waiting for guidance on how the new HHS funding restrictions will work, said Patrick McFarland, who helps to distribute federal child care funds as executive director of the suburban Anoka County Community Action Program.

Anoka County makes up about 5 percent of the state’s population, but receives $18 million in child care subsidies, which McFarland said helps parents keep jobs and boosts the economy.

“It’s nationally a very valuable program in terms of helping people become economically self-sufficient,” he said.

Restricting the subsidies would make life difficult for parents who already face rising child care costs, he said. “It has been politicized.”