When the levee of multi-billion dollar Somali community government fraud scheme in Minnesota began to burst forth in earnest earlier this month, there was a quick and easy defense from the Democratic politicians of the Gopher State: This was small potatoes compared to the benefits that the Somali immigrants provided.
Sure, community groups comprised entirely of Somalians may have taken taxpayer funds to feed people they didn’t actually feed — unless you count their bank accounts as people — but that’s just a small sample of bad apples within a vibrant and hardworking ethnic group.
And sure, when it came out that the fraud might extend to Somali-run learning centers — or “learing” centers, as one of these institutions billed itself — we were told the same thing: Don’t pick on the massive largesse credulous Minnesota liberals showered upon the community just because of aberrations like this:
Still can’t get over Quality Learing Center. They care so little they couldn’t even get the name of the scam right. Imagine that. pic.twitter.com/4vm9d2VNqX
— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) December 27, 2025
No, no, no. None of that. As KSTP-TV reported earlier in December, they had statistics that Somalians in Minnesota generate “$500 million in income annually,” “pay about $67 million in state and local taxes,” and “have an estimated $8 billion impact on the state’s economy.”
Let’s forget about the fact that these statistics are wildly misleading in a Pollyanna-ish way; they basically take the impact that they have on the account by both taking money from somewhere (be it an employer or government) and spending it somewhere. As for that $67 million in state and local taxes, that happened to be a rough estimate that didn’t hold water and wasn’t too impressive when you consider that, with 107,000 estimated individuals of Somali descent in the state, that means it’s well under $1,000 a head.
Let’s instead focus on the real numbers, the real costs of Somalis in Minnesota. And no, not just the money they take illegally. The money they siphon legally through their burden on the state is more than enough of a scandal on its own.
Earlier this month, as we were all tearing each other to pieces over Somali fraud and whether Minnesota Democratic politicians like Gov. Tim Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar should share in the blame, the Center for Immigration Studies released a pretty comprehensive set of statistics on Somali immigrants in Minnesota on Dec. 10. “Profile of a struggling group,” it was subtitled. That, I must admit, was a masterclass in copywriting understatement.
For instance, 52 percent of children in Somali immigrant homes in Minnesota live in poverty. The rest of the state? Eight percent. Furthermore, over 10 percent of the children in poverty in Minnesota are in Somali immigrant homes, despite the fact that individuals of Somali descent make up just 1 percent of the state’s population.
Five percent of Minnesota natives have no high school diploma. Working-age Somalis? Thirty-nine percent have no diploma. Furthermore, over half who have lived in the United States for over 10 years cannot speak English “very well.”
“About 54 percent of Somali-headed households in Minnesota receive food stamps, and 73 percent of Somali households have at least one member on Medicaid. The comparable figures for native households are 7 percent and 18 percent,” the CIS study found.
“Nearly every Somali household with children (89 percent) receives some form of welfare.”
“The contrast between Somalis and native Minnesotans could hardly be greater. The human development index — a composite indicator of health, income, and education — routinely ranks Minnesota among the top states in the U.S., comparable to the Scandinavian countries from which a large share of Minnesotans derive their ancestry. Consequently, the arrival of impoverished Somalis has created large disparities,” the study reads.
And here’s just a bit of that, visualized:
I wanted data before any comment.
Got some.
This strikes me as a non-ideal immigrant population. pic.twitter.com/2QtsniuABt
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) December 28, 2025
Other statistics not in visualized form:
- Households where no one age 14 or over speaks English “very well.” Native Minnesotans: 0.2 percent. Somali immigrants: 36.4 percent. Somali immigrants who have lived here 10 or more years: 32.5 percent.
- Households with overcrowded conditions. Native Minnesotans: 1.2 percent. Somali immigrants: 28.9 percent. Somali immigrants who have lived here 10 or more years: 26.3 percent.
- Adults in poverty. Native Minnesotans: 6.9 percent. Somali immigrants: 37.5 percent. Somali immigrants who have lived here 10 or more years: 32.9 percent.
- Children in or near poverty. Native Minnesotans: 22.5 percent. Somali immigrants: 81.4 percent. Somali immigrants who have lived here 10 or more years: 76.9 percent.
A model minority this is not.
Of course, we’re paying attention to this because of the obvious fact that the state government of Minnesota has allowed Somali community leaders to get away with taxpayer grift of elephantine proportions. Not only that, they’ve gotten away with it for so long because it’s an affinity grift: Few if any within the Somali community were willing to blow the whistle on all of this.
But while we’re looking at the fraud, we ought to look at the fact that members of Minnesota’s large Somali community have effectively imported their failed state to Minnesota, where it acts as a failed enclave propped up by a government and taxpayer base more solvent than the one the Somalis left behind 8,300 miles away.
In other words, it’s not just the fraud that has President Donald Trump and other Republicans calling for an end to immigration from Somalia and the revocation of the country’s Temporary Protected Status for certain migrants. Rather, it’s the drain on public resources that the community so clearly represents. Data don’t lie, at least not when you don’t elide over the unpleasant truths.
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