On Chicago’s Morning Answer, host Dan Proft framed a grim week for immigration politics: a detailed exposé on large-scale Somali immigrant fraud in Minnesota, the murder of a National Guardsman in Washington, D.C., and a series of increasingly radical reactions from left-wing lawmakers and commentators. Joining him to break down the fallout was John Hinderaker, president of the Center for the American Experiment and contributor to PowerLine.
For Minnesotans, Hinderaker said, the revelations in City Journal’s reporting were not new. “Every word of it was familiar,” he explained. “We’ve been writing about Feeding Our Future for years.” The scandal—believed to be the largest case of COVID-era fraud in the nation—has so far resulted in more than 70 prosecutions, overwhelmingly involving Somali defendants and involving billions of dollars in stolen federal funds.
Yet until recently, the story largely stayed off the national radar. According to Hinderaker, that changed only when former President Donald Trump began publicly commenting on the issue. The national press, including the New York Times, suddenly shifted from downplaying the scandal to acknowledging its scale. Hinderaker suggested a political motive for the timing: Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz is seeking an unprecedented third term, and national Democrats may now see value in nudging him aside.
“Some in the party would like to see Walz quietly take a walk,” he said. “The coverage may be part of that.”
The controversy comes as the Biden administration faces internal dissent in Minnesota. More than 400 employees of the state’s Department of Human Services have signed statements accusing the governor of suppressing whistleblowers, ignoring warnings, and weakening audit oversight—charges that have added fresh urgency to public frustration.
Meanwhile, reactions from progressive lawmakers to last week’s targeted attack on two National Guardsmen—one killed, one seriously wounded—have raised new eyebrows. Rep. Jasmine Crockett suggested the real issue is the presence of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., and repeated unverified claims that immigration enforcement has led to detained migrants drinking their own urine. Writer Wajahat Ali took the rhetoric even further, arguing that white Americans “have lost,” mocking their culture, and celebrating demographic change as a political weapon.
Hinderaker said this kind of rhetoric doesn’t exist in a vacuum. “When people on the left constantly talk about ICE as Trump’s Gestapo and call the president a fascist, what do you think is going to happen?” he asked. Since Trump’s first term, he noted, attacks on law enforcement personnel—especially immigration officers—have sharply increased.
As for new federal action, Trump has pledged to rescind Temporary Protected Status for Somali nationals and pause new asylum applications from several countries. Hinderaker noted the symbolic impact may be stronger than the practical one: fewer than a thousand Somalis nationwide are in the U.S. solely due to TPS. More broadly, he said, Supreme Court precedent from Trump’s first term gives the executive branch wide authority to suspend categories of immigration.
A more complicated question is what to do about naturalized citizens who commit large-scale fraud. Trump has floated the possibility of denaturalization in extreme cases—a legal option that exists but is rarely used. Hinderaker cautioned against sweeping measures but said selective actions might make sense. “Never a large-scale solution,” he said, “but perhaps a shot across the bow.”
Proft noted that voices such as Ilhan Omar and Wajahat Ali may inadvertently be useful to Republicans. Their rhetoric, he argued, clarifies the stakes for voters by dramatizing the ideological divisions inside the Democratic Party.
Hinderaker agreed that the underlying issue—using violence or intimidation as a political tool—must remain central to the discussion. From demonization of law enforcement to street-level activism that resembles Antifa’s disruptions, he sees the same patterns repeating historically. “Antifa has become the militant arm of the Democratic Party,” he said, drawing a parallel to the post–Civil War era. “Identitarians are repeating themselves.”
With Minnesota’s fraud scandal widening, immigration policy tightening, and rhetoric escalating nationwide, both Proft and Hinderaker suggested the country is entering a new phase of the immigration debate—one in which the political, cultural, and security implications can no longer be isolated from one another.
And this time, the national press is being forced to notice.