Tikki Brown, the commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Children, Youth and Families, had a little trouble this week trying to explain away the troubles her state’s daycare system faces. In short, in her efforts to spin the story, she couldn't even get the narrative straight with the people she's defending.
You may remember the daycare that independent investigative journalist Nick Shirley found had misspelled “learning” in its own name on its sign, calling it a “Learing Center.” Well, according to the New York Post, Brown “claims the Quality Learing Center closed down last week, which explains why there were no children when Nick Shirley visited.”
Yesterday, discrediting Brown's claims, the same location was “packed with kids.”
The Post reported that “the center of viral outrage over the Somali community’s multibillion-dollar fraud scandal,” which Brown had said was shut down, “put on a dog and pony show for The Post to demonstrate that it was really a working day care and not a front.”
NEW: MN Department of Children commissioner Tikki Brown claims the Quality Learing Center closed down last week, which explains why there were no children when Nick Shirley visited.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 30, 2025
Today, however, the Quality Learing Center was packed with kids.
The New York Post reports the… pic.twitter.com/P11ooZNkLI
The Post reported that the kids were bused in to counter reporting on the center amid the Minnesota’s Somali daycare fraud controversy. Neighbors of the center told reporters that this was the first time they’d seen any kids go into our come out of the facility.
According to reports, the owners of the “Learing Center” had received $4 million in taxpayer money and had been cited dozens of times for inspection violations.
“At least 20 kids were seen entering the Quality ‘Learing’ Center Monday afternoon after being bused in,” the Post reported.
Center manager Ibrahim Ali was on site yesterday to do his own version of damage control and refute the fraud allegations, but he made matters worse for himself. He mentioned their hours are 2 to 10 p.m. (How many legitimate daycares do you know with those hours?) Then he said, “Do you go to a coffee shop at 11 p.m. and say, ‘Hey, they’re not working’?”
The “Quality Learing Center” is now claiming they’re only open 2PM–10PM, trying to explain away why Nick Shirley didn’t see any kids.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 30, 2025
Yet locals say they’ve never seen a single child there.
Their lies are almost as bad as the spelling on their sign.
pic.twitter.com/JIfvmlBHLb
“We’ve never seen kids go in there until today. That parking lot is empty all the time, and I was under the impression that place is permanently closed,” a neighbor told the Post.
The Post found other evidence of prior daycare fraud that’s tied to the local Somali community.
Newly discovered video from a previous state fraud case showed Somali adults in Minnesota bringing kids to a daycare, checking them in, and then immediately leaving with them.
Minn.’s multimillion-dollar day-care fraud reportedly stretches back to 2014, saw scammers leave US with up to $1M a pop in cash https://t.co/59Fr1Y6kyE pic.twitter.com/wEcN53F2j8
— New York Post (@nypost) December 29, 2025
If you’re keeping score, it’s a bit early to assess the real damage here. If you just focus on Medicare/Medicaid and daycare issues, the amount of corruption and fraud that appears traceable to Minnesota Somali organizations is likely in the billions. And the number of individuals involved is bound to be comparably large.
That doesn’t count Somali immigrants who have been apprehended and charged for fraud surrounding hundreds of millions of dollars ‘misappropriated’ for other programs, like food banks, housing subsidies, and fake autism programs.
Do you remember when the Biden administration wanted to hire those 80,000 IRS agents to come after you and me for audits? Maybe the Trump administration can take that line item and roll it over to the FBI just to get to the root of the amount of Somali fraud and corruption in America.
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