OAN Staff Blake Wolf
9:23 AM – Wednesday, December 31, 2025
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the Trump administration is looking at revoking the citizenship of Somali Americans convicted of defrauding social services.
In a Wednesday appearance on Fox News, Leavitt stated that revocation of citizenship for Somali fraudsters is “something the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State is currently looking at right now.”
Leavitt’s comments follow renewed outrage over the alleged mass fraud committed by members of the Somali community.
There have been a total of 57 guilty pleas and convictions in the COVID-19-era “Feeding Our Futures” fraud scheme, in which a Minnesota nonprofit defrauded the government by stealing over $250 million in federal funds meant to feed vulnerable children during the pandemic.
Last Friday, independent journalist Nick Shirley claimed to have discovered over $110 million in fraud linked to Minnesota’s Somali community.
In his report, Shirley visited several state-licensed daycares in Minneapolis that receive millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies each year, only to find blacked-out windows, locked doors, and no children inside.
Shirley’s findings of alleged widespread fraud triggered a swift response from the federal government, which announced a freeze on all federal childcare payments to Minnesota.
“Under U.S. law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” stated Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
At the beginning of the month, President Donald Trump stated that Somali immigrants should “go back to where they came from,” and that “their country is no good for a reason.”
“I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump stated at the time, adding that the United States will “go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
Although the act of denaturalization is rare, the administration is looking into whether any Somali immigrants committed fraud to obtain citizenship, opening up one potential path to denaturalization and deportation.
“The administration cannot unilaterally revoke anyone’s citizenship. It can initiate proceedings to request that a court revoke citizenship if it can prove that the citizen committed fraud to obtain citizenship, including by lying about a serious criminal offense prior to naturalization. It is not easy, but it is possible,” stated David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.
Although the Trump administration is looking at potential fraudulent methods of obtaining citizenship, others are calling for changes to the law to open up other avenues of deportation.
“I have three words regarding Somalis who have committed fraud against American taxpayers: Send them home. If they’re here illegally, deport them immediately; if they’re naturalized citizens, revoke their citizenship and deport them quickly thereafter. If we need to change the law to do that, I will,” stated GOP House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.).
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