ICE agents Monday targeted Minnesota sites suspected in the state’s sprawling, billion-dollar fraud scheme in a bid to root out potential illegal migrants amid the shameful scandal, authorities said.
“DHS is on the ground in Minneapolis, going DOOR TO DOOR at suspected fraud sites,” the Department of Homeland Security posted on X along with a video of a pair of DHS agents entering Nicollet Tobacco & Vape in Burnsville, about 17 miles south of Minneapolis.
“The American people deserve answers on how their taxpayer money is being used and ARRESTS when abuse is found.”
Authorities are looking into as much as $9 billion that may have been stolen in a widespread social-services scam predominantly orchestrated by members of the state’s Somali community.
“Right now in Minneapolis, Homeland Security Investigations and ICE are on the ground conducting a large-scale investigation on fraudulent daycare and healthcare centers, as well as other rampant fraud,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to The Post.
In the video shared by the agency, two immigration officers enter the Burnsville business and quiz a woman behind the counter about a nearby building that the agents said appeared closed and asked her if she had “seen any people come and go from there” in recent days.
The employee said she wasn’t working the day before and didn’t have any information to share.
In another video posted on X by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the same two agents ask a man outside an unidentified business about any subcontractors they work with.
“Are there any subcontractors you guys deal with, say any other business partners you use for services, transportation or anything like that?” the agent asks.
The man’s response is unintelligible in the video.
“Homeland Security Investigations are on the ground in Minneapolis right now conducting a massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud,” Noem wrote on X in a post accompanying the video.
Dozens of people — many of them Somali immigrants — have been arrested so far in the scheme that saw newly set up businesses and nonprofits that claimed to provide services such as housing, food or health care assistance, then billed the federally funded state programs for the non-existent services.
