Frey Shocked Minneapolis with Somali Independence Day Praise Even as the FBI Tracked Down Fraud Fugitive in Mogadishu

Tim Walz spent years refusing to name the fraud tearing through Minnesota's child nutrition programs.

Now the FBI has done it for him – and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey just stepped in front of a camera to side with the community at the center of it.

What he said about the quarter-billion dollars missing from programs meant to feed hungry kids will tell you everything you need to know.

Frey's Loyalty Declaration Lands Exactly as You'd Expect

Frey posted the video to X over the weekend to mark Somali Independence Day.

In it, he told the crowd he does not see the Somali community as immigrants.

He sees them as family.

"You are our brothers, you are our sisters," Frey said. "You have done so much for this incredible city, and for that, we stand with you."

He also appeared to take a direct swipe at Operation Metro Surge – the Trump administration's sweeping immigration enforcement operation that Tom Homan ran through the Twin Cities and resulted in more than four thousand arrests.

"Through the most difficult of times and through Operation Metro Surge, we all saw that they tried to come for some of us," Frey said. "And, when that happens, we say that you're coming for all of us."

The backlash came fast.

Conservative commentator Matt Van Swol put the number on the table: the Somali community in Minnesota stole two hundred and fifty million dollars from federal child nutrition programs meant to feed hungry, underprivileged children.

Independent journalist Nick Sortor went straight at Frey.

"Are you really too stupid to understand the Somalis simply see you as their useful idiot?" Sortor wrote.

Dustin Grage, a columnist for Townhall, kept it simple.

"Jacob Frey's Independence Day references," Grage wrote. "America: 4, Somalia: 10."

The Fraud Frey Refuses to Name

This is not a new story.

The Feeding Our Future fraud case – what federal prosecutors called the largest COVID-era relief fraud scheme in the country – saw 79 people charged, the overwhelming majority of them Somali Americans operating out of Frey's Minneapolis.

Federal prosecutors laid out a scheme where fraudsters claimed to have served ninety million meals to children in under two years.

Agents who watched one of those sites – officially logging six thousand meals a day – counted roughly forty people walking through the door.

The money went to luxury real estate, high-end vehicles, and overseas wire transfers to accounts in Somalia, Kenya, and China.

Aimee Bock, the founder of Feeding Our Future, was sentenced to more than forty-one years in prison.

In April, the FBI returned to Minneapolis and executed twenty-two search warrants at childcare centers suspected of defrauding the federal government all over again.

Just days before Frey's Somali Independence Day video, a fugitive named Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh – described by the Department of Justice as "a central figure" in the Feeding Our Future scheme – was captured in Mogadishu after nearly four years on the run.

The DOJ said Eidleh "not only stole taxpayer dollars, but he also robbed vulnerable children of critical resources they desperately needed."

One user on X cut through all of it with a single line directed at Frey's audience.

"Minnesota taxpayers, do you feel enriched?"

What These Two Democrats Just Told You About Themselves

Jacob Frey knows every single one of those numbers.

He knows about the raids in his own city.

He knows what prosecutors said about the children who got robbed.

And he stood up in front of a camera and said he stands with this community.

Not with the taxpayers whose money was stolen.

Not with the children the programs were supposed to feed.

With the community.

Tim Walz had the same choice – and made the same call.

His own DHS workers told him fraud was happening.

He called Trump's criticism of it "vile, racist lies."

Then the convictions piled up, the FBI raids came, and Walz dropped his reelection campaign rather than answer for what happened on his watch.

Now Frey is running the same playbook.

He gave his victory speech in Somali after narrowly surviving a challenge from a socialist Somali American state senator backed by Ilhan Omar and the Democratic Socialists of America.

He is not confused about who keeps him in power.

He is not a useful idiot.

He is a calculating Democrat politician who has made the same bet Walz made – that keeping the Somali vote locked up matters more than answering for what happened to a quarter-billion dollars meant to feed hungry kids.

Minneapolis voters gave him a third term.

America's 250th birthday is five days away.

And their mayor just told the world exactly where his loyalty lies.

Sources:

• Elizabeth Weibel, "Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Celebrates Somali Independence Day: 'We Stand with You,'" Breitbart, June 28, 2026.
• Michael Sinkewicz, "Minnesota man captured in Somalia after allegedly helping orchestrate $250M child nutrition fraud scheme," Fox News, June 27, 2026.
• "FBI Raids Minneapolis Childcare Facilities, Part of Sweeping Fraud Investigation," Fox News, April 28, 2026.
• Amy Furr, "Minneapolis's Reelected Democrat Mayor Jacob Frey Delivers Victory Speech in Somali," Breitbart, November 9, 2025.
• "Minneapolis Mayor Blasted on Social Media for Victory Speech in Somali After Winning Third Term," Daily Caller, November 9, 2025.
• "U.S. Attorney Announces Federal Charges Against 47 Defendants in $250 Million Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme," Department of Justice, September 20, 2022.