A Minnesota police union leader says Democrats are happy that the focus on immigration enforcement is distracting from the state’s rampant fraud.
National attention surrounding the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti has put the issue of social services fraud in Minnesota on the “backburner,” Mark Ross, president of the St. Paul Police Federation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. A video suggesting fraud occurred at Somali daycare centers in Minnesota released by independent journalist Nick Shirley in December prompted an aggressive push by the Trump administration to further probe for fraud.
“I ensure that there are a lot of Democrats in the state of Minnesota that are happy that this is a distraction,” Ross told the DCNF. “I thought, you know, that we were getting a lot of great momentum in terms of finally investigating and prosecuting these things. Don’t let anybody in the state fool you — the governor never focused on this.”
“It’s really disturbing to think about it, how [the fraud] went unchecked for so long,” Ross told the DCNF.
“Essentially, what’s been happening is this governor and his commissioners have just turned a blind eye to all of it,” he said. “It’s been super frustrating. That’s a lot of money.”
Ross previously told the New York Post that there would have been “no loss of life” if local officials had allowed police coordination with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche pointed out Monday on Fox News that the focus “turned almost on a dime” and became “all about ICE” when there was a push to expose the fraud in December.
“Really what we have here is a massive underground fraud network operating in Minneapolis, and we had a very strong pushback, very strong pushback, when we raised our hands and said, ‘Stop,’” Blanche said. “And so, yes, we have multiple investigations going on. We sent prosecutors from Main Justice. We sent prosecutors from other U.S. Attorney’s offices all over the country. And we’re making progress every day.”
🚨 BREAKING: Deputy AG @DAGToddBlanche says anti-ICE chaos in Minneapolis is COVER for a massive underground fraud network.
Blanche confirms multiple federal investigations are underway, with prosecutors sent in from across the country.
“This suddenly became all about ICE — but… pic.twitter.com/0GCLJqk92z
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) February 3, 2026
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the DOJ “has been investigating this for months” in a December response to Shirley’s video.
“So far, we have charged 98 individuals – 85 of Somali descent – and more than 60 have been found guilty in court,” she wrote Dec. 29 on X.
Seventy-eight individuals have been charged for participating in the “Feeding Our Future” fraud scheme, which stole $250 million in federal child nutrition program funds, the DOJ announced in November. The investigation was announced under the Biden administration in 2022.
After the shootings, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called for federal agents to leave the state.
“Operation Metro Surge,” the immigration enforcement operation initiated in December, used fraud as a pretext “to attack Democratic politicians and more aggressively and recklessly implement their immigration enforcement agenda,” Minnesota officials claimed in a Jan. 12 lawsuit against the Trump administration.
A judge declined Saturday to immediately order the removal of federal law enforcement.
State officials “provided no metric by which to determine when lawful law enforcement becomes unlawful commandeering, simply arguing that the excesses of Operation Metro Surge are so extreme that the surge exceeds whatever line must exist,” the judge wrote.
Some recent reports indicated fraud cases are slowing down due to immigration enforcement. “Changes in office staffing” prompted an assistant U.S. attorney to ask for an extension in one fraud case, the Minnesota Star Tribune noted.
Joseph Thompson, a top prosecutor known for his focus on state fraud, was among six prosecutors in January who quit over alleged Department of Justice (DOJ) pressure to investigate the wife of Good, who was shot by a federal agent, The New York Times reported on Jan. 13. Walz called Thompson’s departure a “huge loss for our state.”
Bondi told Fox News the next day that she actually fired the officials. (RELATED: Tom Homan Vows Not To Surrender Immigration Enforcement While Chaos Ensues In Minnesota)
“We had six prosecutors who suddenly decided they didn’t want to support the men and women in ICE. One of them was busy doing a photo shoot with the New York Times while ICE was out there risking their lives,” Bondi said. “So they came, they said, we want to resign, but we want to use our annual leave up until April, meaning they wanted the taxpayers to pay for them to go on vacation because they decided they didn’t want to support law enforcement.”
The DCNF reached out to the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office and received an auto reply stating the office is without a public information officer. The DOJ and Walz’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
CEDAR PINES, MINNESOTA – JANUARY 28: ICE agents look for someone at a home on January 28, 2026 in Circle Pines, Minnesota. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social that the state’s fraud is “far greater than the 19 Billion Dollars originally projected.”
“The Biden Administration knew this FRAUD was happening, and did absolutely nothing about it,” he wrote. “‘Scammer’ Illhan Omar and her absolutely terrible friends from Somalia should all be in jail right now or, far worse, send them back to Somalia.”
Several federal agencies are involved in fraud investigations, including the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security.
Mille Lacs County Sheriff Kyle Burton, who participated in a Jan. 9 roundtable with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, told the DCNF that federal resources were needed to address both immigration and fraud in the state.
“Our criminal penalties in this state on how they handle [fraud] crimes of that nature are kind of a joke,” Burton said.
Trump nominated Colin McDonald on Wednesday to his new assistant attorney general position focused on combating fraud, a position he announced early in January.
Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced charges Jan. 14 against a Medicaid provider for $3 million in fraud.
“Since I first took office, my team and I have prosecuted over 300 cases of Medicaid fraud and won over $80 million in restitution and recoveries, and we will continue to do all we can to protect our tax dollars and the services Minnesotans rely on,” Ellison said in a statement.
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