A Somali-run day care in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is claiming someone broke in and stole “important documents,” including children’s enrollment information, employee documentation, and checkbooks.
Nasrulah Mohamed, the 20-year-old manager of Nokomis Day Care Center, told reporters the break-in occurred sometime on Tuesday, with the suspect entering through the kitchen near the back of the facility before damaging a wall and entering the business’s office, the New York Post reported.
Mohamed blamed the break-in on a viral video from citizen journalist Nick Shirley showing alleged fraud at nearly a dozen daycare facilities in Minnesota.
“This is devastating news, and we don’t know why this is targeting our Somali community as one video made by a specific individual made this all happen,” Mohamed claimed, adding that the day care has allegedly received “hateful” and “threatening” messages over the last few days.
“This is frightening and exhausting,” he said, before calling Shirley’s report “false.”
Nokomis Day Care Center is not one of the facilities included in Shirley’s video, which has been viewed more than 132 million times on X to date.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) which has been linked to Hamas and designated by several states as a terrorist criminal organization, rushed to the defense of Nokomis in a statement on Wednesday.
“This disturbing incident raises serious concerns about the real-world consequences of anti-Somali, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate speech circulating online,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR. “When misinformation and dehumanizing rhetoric about an entire community are allowed to spread unchecked, acts of intimidation and vandalism become more likely. Even though this day care had no connection to the viral video being circulated online, it was still targeted. That raises serious questions about whether bias played a role in the vandalism, and those questions deserve a thorough investigation by law enforcement authorities.”
The Minneapolis Police Department told Fox9 that the day care reported the break-in the morning of December 30 and that early information indicates the facility was broken into overnight while it was closed. Police said daycare staff informed them about what was allegedly taken from the building on Wednesday morning.
The incident occurred while at least $1 billion in fraud has been uncovered in Minneapolis, “including fraudulent food, housing and child care payments, with warnings from the US Attorney’s Office that the true figure could be as high as $9 billion,” the Post reported.
So far, 92 people have been arrested in connection with the scheme, and 80 of them are Somali immigrants.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday evening announced the freezing of all childcare payments to Minnesota — which was $185 million in 2025 — until state authorities provide proof that the payments are legitimate.