POLITICS: Media leaps to Somali fraudsters’ defense — but trips over the awful truth

Multiple news outlets are circling the wagons for Minnesota’s embattled and fraud-prone Somali diaspora, which is kind of sweet but also hilariously inept.

The effort covers all the bases: downplaying the scandal, deploying the classic “Republicans pounce” trope and even claiming Minnesota’s Somali community is crucial to the local economy.

The funny thing is, the public relations campaign is actually doing more harm than good. 

Somali residents face growing criticism as federal investigators accuse members of stealing at least $1 billion from Minnesota’s generous welfare programs.

That’s just what prosecutors have uncovered so far.

The total could be much higher.

Since 2022, 87 people, most of them Somali, have been charged in fraud schemes, leading to 61 convictions.

It’s all quite shameful, and recent reporting by City Journal and others has caught President Donald Trump’s attention.

His view of Somalia now mirrors his opinion of Haiti.

This brings us to the latest chapter in the story, in which newsrooms that played no role in bringing the Minnesota fraud to national attention launch a PR blitz in the Somalis’ defense.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, for example, claimed the fraud price tag touted by federal prosecutors is totally inaccurate: Members of the Somali diaspora likely stole only $152 million, the paper huffed — before acknowledging the total amount “is expected to grow as ongoing state and federal investigations into the state programs continue.”

Gee, with local coverage this lax, it’s no wonder the fraud is on track to be the worst in the state’s history.

Other news outlets have fallen back on the familiar tactic of focusing on reactions to the scandal rather than on the scandal itself.

You know this news trend well: It’s the “Republicans pounce” trope.

“The right wing has seized on fraud cases in the state,” reported the Guardian.

ABC News: “Trump has seized on the ballooning controversy in recent days …”

CNN got creative and went with a “Republicans pounce”/sob-story twofer: “Anxiety grips Minneapolis’ Somali community as immigration agents zero in on the Twin Cities.”

That story doesn’t mention the massive fraud schemes until the 29th paragraph — unintentionally alerting the reader to the minimization attempt, and making it clear who’s been guilty of looking the other way. 

Meanwhile, a couple of newsrooms have taken a slightly different approach, arguing that the diaspora has been an outright economic boon to the North Star State.

NPR — speaking of groups that like to hoover up public funds with little to show in return — aired a segment with a reporter from the Minnesota-based Sahan Journal to get to the bottom of the fraud story: She assured listeners that the alleged, confirmed and pending frauds were committed by only a “small number of folks that don’t reflect the entire community.”

The diaspora has “really helped support Minnesota’s growth and businesses,” the reporter concluded in her signoff, “increasing the population and helping a lot of other immigrant communities that are also here” — though her spiel included no facts or figures.

Elsewhere on the local scene, a Minnesota ABC News affiliate took a similar tack, this time with some hard numbers, headlined: “Somali Minnesotans drive economic growth, pay $67M taxes annually.”

An accompanying social-media news blurb added some further detail: “Somali Minnesotans generate at least $500 million in income annually and pay about $67 million in state and local taxes.”

OK, but do you see how that actually harms the Somalis’ case?

Let’s extrapolate the numbers: The US Census reports about 107,000 people of Somali descent in Minnesota; if we’re generous and say that each one of them pays taxes, their per-capita state and local tax contribution is about $630.

Yet the average Minnesota taxpayer paid roughly $8,050 in state and local taxes in 2024 — and sent $16,044 to the federal government, too.

With a median household income of just $28,500, Minnesota’s Somalis pay little in federal taxes.

Members of the diaspora have an unemployment rate of roughly 11%, compared to the general state rate of 3.6%.

Then factor in that at least 46% of Minnesota’s Somali community lives below the federal poverty threshold, making them eligible for SNAP, Medicaid, subsidized housing and other public benefits.

They’re drawing legally from the state’s generous welfare programs, but returning far less to the state on average.

You know what?

I take it back.

Stick to the sob stories, folks. 

If you’re out to do the Minnesota Somalis a solid, maybe just pump out your regular fluff praising refugees and immigrants as the “fabric of our society” and such.

Better that than to accidentally let slip how much they’re grabbing out of the pot without putting a whole lot back in.

Becket Adams is a longtime journalist and media critic in Washington, DC.