U.S. President Donald Trump has renewed his attacks on Somali Americans, with the White House saying the government is reviewing plans to strip citizenship from people convicted of fraud.

Wednesday’s statement comes one day after the Trump administration freeze $185 million in federal subsidies for low-income child care comes amid accusations of fraud at day care facilities run by Somali Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota’s largest city.

in real society postal“The majority of fraud in Minnesota – up to 90 percent – is caused by people who illegally enter our country from Somalia,” Trump wrote.

He also repeatedly attacked Somali-American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, calling her “one of many liars.”

“Send them back from where they came from, Somalia, perhaps the worst, most corrupt country on earth,” Trump wrote.

Meanwhile, White House spokesperson Carolyn Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News that the administration is “considering” the possibility of revoking the citizenship of Somali Americans convicted of fraud.

She said denaturalization remains “a tool available to the president and secretary of state.”

Trump and his allies have repeatedly threatened to strip citizenship from a range of naturalized citizens: those who were born outside the United States but gained citizenship through the government’s immigration process.

While legal experts note that it is possible to strip foreign-born citizens of their citizenship, this is extremely rare and typically requires a high burden of proof to prove that the individual was naturalized under false pretenses.

Increased scrutiny

Trump often demonized immigrant communities throughout his political career.

Such rhetoric dates back to 2016, a hallmark of his first successful campaign for president. During the 2015 campaign, he sparked outrage by claiming that Mexico was sending “rapists” and criminals across the southern border to the United States.

Later, during the 2024 presidential campaign, he again made baseless accusations against Haitians living in Illinois, including that they killed and ate their pets.

In recent weeks, Trump has focused on Somali Americans, Compare They “rubbish” and criticize the legal ways they are allowed to enter the country. He further claimed that they were “destroying America.”

Legislators, community groups and political organizations condemn Trump’s comments are blatantly racist.

But Trump matched his words with action. His administration has dispatched immigration enforcement officers to Minnesota over the past month, conducted a massive audit of legal Somali immigrants and prioritized investigating fraud allegations in the state.

His efforts capture the scandals that have plagued the Midwestern state in recent years.

Prosecutors allege criminals defrauded the state by misusing about $9 billion in social assistance funds and nearly $300 million in COVID-19 funds.

The Justice Department has charged 98 people in Minnesota as part of its broad fraud investigation, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday, adding that 85 of them were “of Somali descent.”

However, many of these accusations occurred before Trump’s second term.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz also countered that local and federal authorities have been fighting fraud in the state for years, calling it a “serious problem.”

Walz posted on social media platform X on Wednesday that Trump is “using an issue he doesn’t care about as an excuse to hurt working-class Minnesotans.”

Some of the actions taken by the Trump administration come after a video uploaded by conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley went viral, claiming that a day care center run by Somali Americans in Minneapolis was defrauded of up to $100 million.

Shirley’s video has been viewed 127 million times on X, and he has been quoted multiple times by government officials, including Bundy.

On Tuesday, for example, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a social media post that his organization was “aware of recent social media reports in Minnesota.”

He added that the bureau has “increased personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota to disrupt large-scale fraud schemes that exploit federal programs.”

Still, the accuracy of Shirley’s video has been questioned.

A CBS News investigation this week found that “all but two” of the day care centers in the video had valid licenses and had been “inspected by state regulators within the past six months.”

The regulators issued multiple fines but “documented no evidence of fraud,” the report said.