Washington (Somalia Today) — The Trump administration is examining whether to strip US citizenship from Somali Americans convicted of fraud in Minnesota, the White House confirmed Wednesday, sharpening a federal response that has already led Washington to freeze child care payments to the state.
The White House framed the potential denaturalisation effort as part of a broader push to pursue alleged abuse across state-administered programmes that rely on federal dollars, with officials portraying Minnesota as a priority target for enforcement and oversight.
“It’s something the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State are currently looking at right now,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News when asked about denaturalisation for Somalis convicted of fraud in Minnesota.
Leavitt described denaturalisation as a “tool” available to the president and the secretary of state, and said the administration was using a “whole-of-government” approach that includes Justice Department warrants and subpoenas, as well as DHS activity in Minnesota communities.
The comments revive a Trump-era policy track that sought to increase the government’s use of civil denaturalisation.
In 2020, the Justice Department created a dedicated Denaturalization Section in its Civil Division to pursue cases involving people accused of unlawfully obtaining citizenship, including through material misrepresentations.
But Democratic officials and civil rights advocates say the administration’s language — and its focus on Somali-origin defendants — risks turning a law-enforcement matter into collective suspicion.
They argue that a relatively small number of alleged fraudsters should not be used to stigmatise an established community that is overwhelmingly law-abiding, particularly when major fraud investigations in Minnesota have unfolded for years under multiple administrations.
Fraud accusations
Federal officials have cast the Minnesota investigations as a test case for the administration’s broader claims that public programmes remain vulnerable to organised fraud.
The Justice Department said Monday it charged 98 people in a wide-ranging Minnesota fraud investigation and said more than 60 defendants have already pleaded guilty or been convicted, adding that more cases are expected.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said 85 of those charged were “of Somali descent,” according to reporting that cited her public remarks.
Minnesota has confronted major fraud prosecutions in recent years, including the high-profile Feeding Our Future case involving pandemic-era child nutrition funding.
In 2022, federal prosecutors announced charges against dozens of defendants in what they described as a roughly $250 million scheme exploiting a federally funded child nutrition programme during COVID-19.
Prosecutors said defendants inflated meal counts and used fictitious paperwork and fabricated or recycled rosters to back reimbursement claims, then diverted the proceeds to personal expenses, including vehicles, real estate, and travel.
A federal jury in Minnesota convicted dozens of defendants in 2025 for their roles in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, the US attorney’s office said, as the broader prosecution continues to move through the courts.
High legal hurdles
Even with an aggressive enforcement posture, denaturalisation remains legally demanding and historically uncommon, requiring the government to meet a high burden to unwind a grant of citizenship.
Under federal law, the government generally must prove citizenship was “illegally procured” — most often by showing the person was ineligible for naturalisation or obtained it through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation during the naturalisation process.
The Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Maslenjak v. United States tightened the standard in naturalisation-fraud prosecutions by requiring a meaningful connection between a false statement and the grant of citizenship, rather than treating any lie as automatically sufficient.
That framework limits how easily the government can point to later criminal conduct as a basis for revoking citizenship. In practice, successful cases often hinge on demonstrating that the person lied or withheld disqualifying information during immigration or naturalisation proceedings.
DHS has said it is reviewing naturalisation cases involving people from a list of “countries of concern,” including Somalia, to identify potential citizenship fraud that could warrant denaturalisation under US law.
Fiscal freeze
Alongside the legal threats, the administration has applied immediate financial pressure on Minnesota.
The Department of Health and Human Services said it has frozen roughly $185 million in annual federal child care funds to Minnesota, saying the payments will remain paused until the state can demonstrate proper use of the money.
Federal officials also said they are tightening national controls on child care payments, including requiring additional documentation and verification before distributing funds to states.
Minnesota’s child care system has drawn oversight warnings before. A 2019 report by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor found the state’s Child Care Assistance Program was vulnerable to fraud and documented longstanding weaknesses in controls and verification.
Political fallout
Republicans in Congress have moved to expand the political and investigative spotlight on Minnesota.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer announced hearings beginning January 7, 2026, focused on alleged fraud and misuse of federal funds in Minnesota social services programmes, and invited Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to testify on February 10.
Walz, a Democrat, has condemned the federal funding freeze as politically motivated and said Minnesota has pursued prosecutions and reforms aimed at tightening oversight, while the administration argues tougher federal conditions are necessary to protect taxpayer funds.
The escalation also follows weeks of increasingly charged political rhetoric around Minnesota fraud allegations.
Earlier this month that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a federal inquiry after Trump and some Republican lawmakers amplified unverified media claims alleging fraud proceeds had reached militant groups — assertions not backed by publicly released evidence in those reports.
The Associated Press has estimated the Minneapolis–St Paul area is home to about 84,000 Somali residents, most of them US citizens, a demographic reality that makes denaturalisation rhetoric particularly consequential for community relations and civic participation.
Representative Ilhan Omar, whose district includes parts of Minneapolis, has urged officials not to cast suspicion on entire communities based on the alleged crimes of individuals, as civil liberties groups warn that expansive denaturalisation campaigns could chill civic participation among naturalised Americans.
Civil liberties groups warn that expansive denaturalisation campaigns risk undermining confidence in the permanence of naturalised citizenship, while administration officials and congressional Republicans argue that tougher enforcement is essential to deter fraud and recover misused public funds.
