Jan. 5 (UPI) — The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that it is sending more than 2,000 agents to Minneapolis as it cracks down on the region over allegations of fraud by people who live there.
Roughly 1,500 deportation officers and 600 Homeland Security Investigations officers started to arrive Sunday to investigate a welfare-fraud scandal that has grown in recent weeks, law enforcement officials told CBS, NBC and the Wall Street Journal.
The deployment, which is the first expanded immigration crackdown of 2026, will be led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commander Gregory Bovino, who has also led enforcement efforts in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and New Orleans.
“This is a massive resource allocation,” one officials said, comparing the number of officers being sent to Minneapolis to the entire HSI staff in Arizona and is similar in scale to immigration deployments in Chicago.
The surge is occurring as HSI and ICE already have ramped up arrests in immigrant-populated neighborhoods as the federal government is scrutinizing alleged fraud among Somali-owned daycares in the state that receive federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services.
The alleged fraud has gained even more attention since a viral video by a right-wing YouTuber alleged that Somali-run daycares he had visited were receiving funds but that there were no children at the daycares.
Although state health officials investigated the allegations at nine child care centers and found they were operating normally and as expected, the federal government nonetheless froze $185 million in funding sent to Minnesota for day care services.
“Children were present at all sites except one — that site was not yet open for families for the day when inspectors arrived,” the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families said.
Overall, the agents being sent to Minnesota will be looking specifically at the Somali community there, where the Department of Homeland Security already has been knocking on doors to root out fraud and find people allegedly violating immigration law.
President Donald Trump has specifically called out the Somali community in there, saying that the immigrants are “garbage” and “contribute nothing” the United States.
“I don’t want them in our country,” Trump said. “I’ll be honest with you. Their country’s no good for a reason. Their country stinks.”
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