A lull in the weekly parade of teachers across the U.S. being busted for sexual relationships with their students ended this week with a Minnesota teacher being hit with a jail sentence for meetups with a student and another educator in Kentucky banned from ever teaching again after pleading guilty to sexting with a pupil.
The election system in Minnesota is facing scrutiny on social media after a clip of a state official speaking to Somali voters reignited concerns about election integrity in the state.
"If you’re already registered to vote, you don’t need to bring anything with you," Minnesota Voter Outreach Director Melanie Hazelip said on Somali TV.
"You just show up to your early voting location, which is usually the county office or City Hall. Minneapolis and the bigger jurisdictions have a lot of extra places where you can go, like a lot of libraries or community centers. As long as you’re registered to vote, you don’t need to bring anything with you.
"If you’re not registered to vote … you still have options. If you have a Minnesota ID that is updated, that’s all you need to bring with you. If you don’t have that, there is a list of documents on our website that you can find. You still have options to get registered same day."
While Hazelip's comments were in accordance with the laws on the books, they prompted outrage on social media after being posted by conservative influencer End Wokeness, and the post racked up almost a million views with users making the case that the system is too lax.
"A Minnesota election official just went on Somali TV and walked viewers through how to same-day register and vote using a Minnesota state ID," retired Navy intelligence Officer Phillip C. Parrish posted on X.
"Minnesota hands out those IDs to non-citizens with no citizenship marking. Vouching lets one registered voter clear up to eight others on an oath. Citizenship is required by law. Real-time proof is not. The same state that lost hundreds of millions to documented fraud in childcare, nutrition, and Medicaid programs is now advertising the lowest-friction path to the ballot on community TV. Affirm you’re a citizen. Cast the vote. Get investigated later—if at all. This is how the system is built. It is not an accident."
Federalist Society co-founder David McIntosh wrote on X, "Democrats are on a mission to tell every non-citizen how they can get away with voting in our elections.
"Nothing to see here, I'm sure," Red Ax Strategies President Matthew Brodsky posted on X.
"This is why passing the SAVE America Act is crucial," conservative commentator Riley Gaines posted on X.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, the Minnesota Secretary of State's office said it "provides information and resources on Minnesota election laws to hundreds of nonpartisan community groups every year as a part of our regular voter engagement efforts."
"Recently, our voter outreach director spoke with a local news outlet and provided accurate information about Minnesota election laws and how eligible voters cast their ballots. Unfortunately, her accurate remarks have been misinterpreted and misrepresented by political actors online," the statement said.
"With only a few days left before the election, we remain focused on making sure every eligible Minnesotan knows how and where to cast their ballot."
Bill Glahn, a policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, told Fox News Digital, "given the timing, so close to the election — and the audience, Somali TV — she really should have emphasized the need to be an American citizen in order to vote."
"It's true most Somali immigrants are naturalized citizens, but not all," Glahn said. "In fact, we just had a noncitizen sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for the Feeding Our Future fraud."
The scrutiny comes as the Walz administration confronts hundreds of millions of dollars lost to social services fraud tied to the state’s Somali immigrant community. Critics pointed to a further wrinkle in Minnesota state law signed by Gov. Tim Walz in 2023 that provided for Driver's Licenses For All regardless of immigration status. The policy also stipulates that the licenses carry no markings indicating citizenship, even though such IDs are commonly used to register to vote.
Under Minnesota law, a registered voter can "vouch" for up to eight other voters’ residency who want to sign up for same-day voter registration without an ID. The registered voter must go with the person or people to the polling place and sign an oath verifying their address, according to an official fact sheet from the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State.
Glahn told Fox News Digital earlier this year that while the state touts the safeguards it has put in place to ensure only citizens vote, "it’s like murder’s illegal, but it happens all the time."
"It's a penalty of perjury," he said. "You signed an oath, but if you signed as Mickey Mouse, they're not going to find you."
In September, a federal indictment was handed down charging an illegal immigrant from India with knowingly making the false claim to be a U.S. citizen to vote in the 2024 general election in Minnesota.
Fox News Digital's Charles Creitz contributed to this report
The FBI confirmed that federal and state agencies were conducting "court-authorized investigative activity" at multiple locations across Minnesota, including sites in the Twin Cities and Rochester, according to MPR News. Meanwhile, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office also confirmed that its Medicaid Fraud Control Unit executed search warrants at Iska Inc. in St. Louis Park and Bright Horizon Therapy in Edina, both of which provide autism-related or other Medicaid-funded services.
The operation involved the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, IRS criminal investigators, U.S. Postal Inspectors and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, according to FOX 9 Minneapolis.
"This is an active investigation, and no further details are available at this time," FBI Minneapolis spokesperson Matt Vogel told MPR News.
Iska Inc. received more than $16.7 million in Medicaid payments between 2018 and 2025, according to state data reviewed by the Minnesota Star Tribune. The business participated in Minnesota's Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program, which provides services to children and young people with autism and has faced increasing scrutiny over fraud allegations.
The latest searches follow a series of enforcement operations targeting suspected fraud in Minnesota's publicly funded programs. In April, federal and state investigators executed 22 search warrants in Minnesota, including at autism service providers and childcare businesses.
The Justice Department also announced charges against 15 defendants in May in connection with alleged health care fraud schemes involving more than $90 million in intended losses. The cases included an alleged $46.6 million scheme targeting Minnesota's autism intervention program, which DOJ said saw Medicaid claims surge from more than $600,000 in 2018 to more than $400 million by 2025.
The raids come ahead of Vice President JD Vance's planned visit to Minnesota — alongside members of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud — where allegations of public-services fraud have fueled growing questions about oversight.
Local officials tried to grow close to activist groups and collected information that was then shared with industry
Newly released emails show local government officials in Minneapolis have quietly surveilled environmental justice activists who are working to close a controversial waste incinerator that is emitting pollution into low-income neighborhoods around it, activist groups allege.
County officials sent an employee who is also an environmental justice activist to collect intelligence, among other tactics, emails show. The information was then used to help successfully kill state-level environmental legislation opposed by the incinerator’s leadership, and try to stay one step ahead of activist campaigns and protests. In another instance, a county employee presenting himself as an ally allegedly tried to obtain the identity of a whistleblower, a recording shows.
MINNEAPOLIS — The Republican running an underdog bid to unseat embattled Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, tore into his progressive opponent after her Washington, D.C., home was raided a month before the midterm election.
John Nagel said it should be easy for the Somali-born congresswoman to clear up any public misunderstandings of her immigration status amid a federal investigation into alleged fraud and said that Omar views herself as Somali first, American second.
He also claimed that Minneapolis has a "terrorist problem" and a gun-running operation, and called for a task force to crack down on the Somali gang violence.
"We have two problems in Minnesota. We have a terrorist problem, which you saw with the Mall of America — thank God that the FBI actually took care of that before anybody got in there — and then we have a Somali gang problem," the career law enforcement officer told Fox News Digital.
Nagel, who spent 30 years as a state trooper, claims the issue extends beyond Somali gangs, noting: "We have Somali gangs, we have Asian gangs, we have Black gangs, we have Latino gangs, and we need a gang task force."
The FBI thwarted a terror attack at the Mall of America, located in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, on Oct. 7, 2026.
Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, was arrested and charged with knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition while knowing or having reasonable cause to believe they would be used to commit a felony and federal crime of terrorism. He is an American citizen born to Somali parents, who allegedly pledged allegiance to Somali-based ISIS offshoot al-Shabaab.
Separately, Somali gangs were blamed by local officials for two separate shooting instances in the Minneapolis suburbs in past weeks. One was a mass shooting at Eden Prairie High School during the school's homecoming celebration. The shooting, which injured two, occurred in the parking lot of the high school after gang members were seen making gang signs at one another. Abdirahman Ahmed Jama, 18, was arrested on a riot charge in that incident.
Court documents said that Jama was the target of a later Somali gang shooting at a gas station in the town of Bloomington, likely in retaliation for the homecoming shooting, according to FOX 9. More than 100 rounds of ammunition were fired in that incident.
"They don't necessarily deal in drugs yet. They're kind of a low-level gang, but they're still vicious," Nagel said of the gangs. "Primarily, they deal in guns. They buy and sell guns, illicit guns. They're also the ones that know how to take and remove some parts and basically turn a pistol into a little mini machine gun. That's what we saw in Bloomington and Eden Prairie, you know, where all of those rounds were expanded."
After the recent uptick in suburban Somali violence, according to Nagel, local officials have finally recognized the violence as Somali gang-related, after strong pushback from anyone who suggested that in recent years.
Nagel said that when Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said a year ago that Somali gang violence was a problem, he was called a "racist" and "immediately attacked by the Somali community."
"And of course, you know, the media loves that, and they went right along with it," he said. "[The] problem was, he was right. There was a Somali gang problem."
"So, we're in a really good spot because we've now all come out and said, 'Yes, we have a Somali gang problem,' and that being called a racist doesn't have a sting to it anymore," Nagel continued.
As for Omar, who is under criminal probe for potentially falsifying information on her immigration paperwork, Nagel said she deserves due process, but that she actively tries to undermine the United States.
"It's a very serious accusation, and we definitely want due process," he said. "She deserves the same investigation that everybody else would have, and in her own words, no one is above the law."
Nagel added that while it's not incumbent upon Omar to prove her innocence, he thinks it would be simple for the Somali-born congresswoman to clear up any public misunderstandings of her immigration status.
"However, it would be very simple if you are innocent to be able to come up with the paperwork, do the DNA sample. I mean, there are a lot of things that you could do that put a lot this behind you, and I would think that as a politician, you know, you're not a private person anymore, you're a public person," he said. "The people that voted for you have a right to know if they can trust you, and as a politician, I would be doing everything I could to make sure that I maintain that trust. And right now, I don't see much trust in what she's doing."
Ultimately, Nagel thinks Omar views herself as a Somali first.
"Her first love is Somalia. She constantly tells people that. She constantly tells the United States how we're doing everything wrong, and she constantly tries to take the United States and weaken it. "So yes, as far as I'm concerned, Somalia comes first in her life, and we are nothing more than a piggy bank for her."
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Donald Trump is a man of loyalties and, above all, grudges. If there is one community for which the U.S. president has repeatedly shown contempt, it is the Somali community. And if there is one political rival who has borne the brunt of his hostility, it is Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia 44 years ago.
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