Minneapolis (Somalia Today) — A leading Muslim civil rights group in Minnesota on Friday condemned legislation introduced by Republican Congressman Pete Stauber targeting fraud in Minnesota’s childcare programmes.
The group said the bill’s title and language unfairly single out Somalis and risk fuelling hostility towards one of the largest Somali communities in the United States.
Stauber introduced the proposal on March 12 under the title “Stop Fraud by SOMALIA Act”.
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-MN, said the measure wrongly links criminal conduct to an entire nationality rather than to individuals accused of wrongdoing.
“Fraud is a crime committed by individuals, not by entire communities. Public policy should be grounded in evidence and due process, not collective blame,” Suleiman Adan, the group’s deputy executive director, said in a statement.
Jaylani Hussein, CAIR-MN’s executive director, said authorities should prosecute wrongdoing wherever it occurs, but argued that naming federal legislation after a nationality was discriminatory and unacceptable.
Stauber’s office said the bill would increase penalties for providers convicted of defrauding the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant programme.
In a statement announcing the legislation, the congressman said he introduced the measure in response to what he described as widespread fraud in Minnesota’s childcare assistance system.
He repeatedly used the phrase “Somali fraudsters”.
His office said the bill would impose lifetime bans on convicted providers from federally funded childcare assistance programmes and require states to repay fraudulently obtained funds to the Department of Health and Human Services.
It would also mandate referral to the Justice Department and create immigration consequences for some non-citizens convicted of fraud.
Somalis under attack
CAIR-MN said the bill should be viewed in the context of a wider political climate in which Somali and Muslim communities in Minnesota have increasingly come under attack from national Republicans.
That concern has grown in recent months as President Donald Trump and senior administration officials have linked fraud investigations in Minnesota to the state’s Somali population.
The debate comes as anti-Muslim incidents rise nationally. CAIR said this week it recorded 8,683 anti-Muslim and anti-Arab complaints across the United States in 2025, the highest annual number on record.
CAIR-MN said complaints in Minnesota rose to 693 from 353 a year earlier.
Minnesota is home to the largest Somali-origin population of any US state. Census estimates cited showed that about 76,000 people of Somali descent lived in Minnesota in 2024, and that more than half were born in the United States.
Many others arrived after fleeing Somalia’s long conflict, helping build a community that now plays a prominent role in the state’s political, business and civic life.
Fraud scrutiny
The dispute also comes against the backdrop of years of scrutiny over fraud in Minnesota public programmes.
The most prominent case, Feeding Our Future, centred on what federal prosecutors described as a roughly $250 million scheme to steal money intended to feed children during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Aimee Bock, the white American founder of the non-profit at the centre of the case, was found guilty last March. By September, at least 56 defendants had pleaded guilty, according to the US Justice Department.
Trump and his allies have used the prosecutions to cast suspicion broadly on Somali Minnesotans.
Minnesota’s childcare system has also come under official review, though federal auditors drew a distinction between weak controls and proven criminal fraud.
In a May 2025 audit, the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general said Minnesota had failed to comply with attendance and payment rules for 38 of 200 sampled childcare assistance payments in 2023.
Based on that sample, auditors estimated that 11 percent of payments to 1,155 licensed childcare centres contained at least one attendance or payment error, leading to overpayments.
Late last year, the Trump administration tightened reporting requirements nationwide after publicly singling out Minnesota over childcare allegations.
For CAIR-MN, that distinction remains central.
The group said authorities should investigate and prosecute fraud, but warned that inflammatory language from elected officials can spill over into harassment and threats against ordinary families.
“History has shown that when elected officials stigmatise communities, it fuels harassment and threats against those communities,” Adan said.
“Minnesota’s Somali families should not have to fear that others will collectively blame them for the alleged actions of a few individuals.”
Immigration fears
The row has also sharpened anxiety around immigration policy.
Earlier this week, advocates sued to block the Trump administration’s planned termination of Temporary Protected Status for Somali nationals, a programme first granted in 1991.
About 1,082 Somalis currently hold TPS, and another 1,383 applications are pending.
That has reinforced concerns among advocates that questions of fraud, immigration and identity are becoming increasingly entangled in political debate around Somali Americans in Minnesota.
Hussein said Congress should reject discriminatory framing and instead pursue policies that strengthen oversight while respecting the dignity and civil rights of all Americans.
“No member of Congress would introduce legislation titled the ‘Stop Fraud by Norwegians Act’ or the ‘Stop Fraud by Germans Act,’” he said.
“Targeting Somalis in the title of federal legislation is discriminatory and unacceptable.”
