On June 28, at a Somali Independence Day celebration in Minneapolis, Mayor Jacob Frey took the stage and told the crowd, "We do not see you as immigrants. We see you as our family. You are our brothers. You're our sisters."
One hundred and ten people from that family have been charged in fraud schemes targeting Minnesota social service programs.
The timing here is not subtle. The House Oversight Committee is actively investigating fraud networks in Minnesota's Somali community, and the biggest case — the "Feeding Our Future" scandal — recently produced a headline when ringleader Abdikerm Eidleh was arrested in Mogadishu, Somalia, after four years on the run. Federal investigators are still pulling threads. Charges are still being filed. And the mayor of Minneapolis decided this was the perfect moment for a bear hug.
Frey's full remarks went further than the "family" line. "Through the most difficult of times and through Operation Metro surge, we all saw that they tried to come for some of us," he said. "And when that happens, we say that you're coming for all of us. In Minneapolis, we loved our neighbors."
The "they" in that sentence is ICE. The operation Frey referenced — Operation Metro Surge — resulted in over 4,000 arrests in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, with Border Czar Tom Homan characterizing the results as reducing public safety threats. Frey framed it as persecution.
This is the political calculation laid bare. A mayor standing at a podium, with federal fraud investigators working cases in his city, choosing to cast law enforcement as the aggressor. Not the people who looted social service programs meant to feed children. The cops.
Frey also added, "Here in Minnesota, home to one of the largest Somali communities in the United States, we celebrate the resilience, culture, and leadership that continue to enrich our city and community." Fine sentiments in a vacuum. Less fine when the House Oversight Committee is documenting how some of that community's leadership enriched themselves.
Governor Tim Walz's administration has disputed the Committee's findings regarding the state's response to fraud, though the specifics of that dispute have been notably thin on detail. When you've got 110 people charged and a fugitive ringleader hauled out of Mogadishu, "we handled it" is a tough sell.
RedState's Becky Noble flagged the obvious tension: a sitting mayor publicly signaling solidarity with a community under active federal investigation, during the investigation.
There's a version of this speech that works. You acknowledge the contributions of a community. You express concern about broad-brush enforcement. You call for due process. That speech exists. Frey didn't give it. He gave the speech where federal law enforcement is "coming for" people, where the community is purely a victim, and where 110 fraud charges are not worth a single sentence.
When your definition of "family" includes looking the other way while the feds build cases in your backyard, the word starts to mean something different than what's on the Hallmark card.
