A leading immigration analyst says Minnesota’s massive fraud scandal unfolded in part because the state operates as a high trust state, creating an environment where oversight lagged, and bad actors exploited taxpayer-funded programs with ease. Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 defendants—many linked to Somali-run nonprofits—in what they describe as “schemes stacked upon schemes” draining hundreds of millions from child-nutrition and Medicaid housing programs.
Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that a decline in immigrant assimilation played a significant role. “We don’t really expect anything of our immigrants,” he explained, arguing that both cultural norms and America’s lax expectations contributed to a system where early warning signs were missed.
Hankinson emphasized that the wrongdoing does not reflect Minnesota’s broader Somali community of roughly 80,000 people, calling the perpetrators a minority. Still, he said the lack of assimilation allowed the fraud to stay hidden. “Everything is family, everything is clan, everything is local,” he said, adding that community ties discouraged reporting: “They’re not going to rat out the clan member, the family member.”
Minnesota’s generous welfare structure and its reputation as a “high trust state” made programs easy targets. “In Minnesota, these programs were low-hanging fruit. They were so easy to fleece, it’s almost farcical,” he said.
Prosecutors accuse some organizations of exploiting Medicaid autism benefits by securing fraudulent diagnoses. Hankinson said the spike in reported autism rates should have triggered scrutiny: “Somebody should have noticed at some point.”
He argued political fear made regulators hesitant. “Nobody likes to be called a racist,” he noted, saying some scammers threatened accusations of bias to avoid oversight.
Hankinson added that Democratic Gov. Tim Walz was “asleep at the switch” during the scandal and said accountability is essential: “This is America, we have laws… When you break those rules, you are going to get punished.”
