Federal law enforcement agencies conducted a series of raids connected to the investigation into alleged welfare fraud in Minnesota on Tuesday morning, federal authorities said.
The raids are not part of an immigration enforcement operation.
“Today the FBI with federal, state and local law enforcement is involved in court-authorized law enforcement activity as part of an ongoing fraud investigation,” a spokesperson for the Justice Department said.
At least 22 federal search warrants were executed in Minnesota on Tuesday morning, a senior Justice Department official told NBC News. It was not immediately clear how many total raids occurred.
No arrests or criminal charges were announced Tuesday.
Some of the search warrants were at autism centers, Minnesota Human Services Commissioner Shireen Gandhi said.
“This is an important action for families who rely on autism services and for Minnesota taxpayers fed up — as I am — with criminals taking advantage of the systems we have in place to deliver social services,” Gandhi said.
At least one of the raids appeared to be at the Somali Senior Center and Adult Day Services facility, as federal law enforcement can be seen going in and out of the building.
The facility did not answer a call from NBC News on Tuesday morning.
The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday on X that it "executed criminal search warrants in Minneapolis relating to the rampant fraud of American taxpayers dollars,” adding that DHS “will continue working to deliver answers to the American people on how their taxpayer dollars were abused.”
U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., thanked the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security “for taking action against Somali fraudsters” in a statement Tuesday.
President Donald Trump has verbally disparaged Minnesota’s large Somali community and made accusations of fraud regarding social services. In December, Trump said Somalis should “go back to where they came from.”
Trump’s remarks came after a massive fraud scheme involving the group Feeding Our Future, which resulted in criminal charges against some members of Minnesota’s Somali community — although the convicted alleged mastermind is Aimee Bock, a white woman — and after a viral video by a YouTube personality.
“The task force and the DOJ will be relentless in exposing these fraudsters wherever they may be hiding,” Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday on X.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, appeared to laud the collaboration between state and federal agencies that carried out the fraud raids, saying, "Today’s raids by state and federal law enforcement happened because our state agencies caught irregular behavior and reported it."
"That’s how the system is supposed to work, and our agencies will keep at it as long as there are fraudsters around to put behind bars," Walz wrote on X.
"If you commit fraud in Minnesota, you’re going to get caught — and that’s exactly what we saw today," Walz wrote on X. "We catch criminals when state and federal agencies share information. Joint investigations work, and securing justice depends on it."
The governor continued: "Now let’s work on a joint investigation into the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good — instead of cherry picking when we seek justice and when we turn a blind eye."
FBI Director Kash Patel then responded to Walz on X, attempting to cut him out of the conversation and the planning for the raids.
"This FBI and DOJ drafted and executed every search warrant today," Patel said. "But go ahead and take credit for our work while we smoke out the fraud plaguing Minnesota under your governorship."
The Minnesota Department of Human Services said it has taken steps over the past 18 months to strengthen oversight of its Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program, which include autism centers.
The department said that since October it conducted 444 on-site visits to EIDBI service providers and that the information made DHS change its classification from medium to high risk.
In January, the state Department of Human Services said it began hiring independent auditors to audit service providers that have billing seen as outliers.
