The American right wing, with the Trump administration at the forefront, has seized upon a vast case of public aid fraud that has been tarnishing the Somali community in Minnesota for several months, to violently attack it and further harden its immigration policy.

An influencer's video on the subject ignited conservative circles this weekend and triggered a federal police control operation on the ground, with officials already mentioning possible deportations.

"What's happening in Minnesota shows, on a miniature scale, what immigration fraud looks like in our system," Vice President JD Vance said Saturday.

This case of embezzlement of public funds with multiple ramifications has led to the indictment of 98 people, "including 85 of Somali origin," insisted Justice Minister Pam Bondi on Monday.

In the main case, more than $300 million was misappropriated by suspects who obtained public subsidies to distribute free meals to children, meals that were never served in most cases.

- Call for the withdrawal of American citizenship -

Republican elected officials and the federal prosecutor in charge of the case suspect that local Democratic authorities turned a blind eye to numerous warnings for years because the case concerned the Somali community in Minnesota, the largest in the country with about 80,000 members.

"People didn't want to be labeled racist or Islamophobic, and they were also protecting one of their constituent groups," local Republican councilwoman Kristin Robbins told AFP. She points the finger at Democratic Governor Tim Walz, Kamala Harris's unsuccessful running mate in 2024, who denies any wrongdoing.

Although the case was made public as early as 2022, it has accelerated this year with new revelations, taking on a very political turn.

"This issue is finally getting all the attention it deserves," Lisa Demuth, the Republican speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, told AFP.

Interest in the case was revived during the holiday season by a video from a right-leaning YouTuber, Nick Shirley, in which he claims to show nativity scenes that he alleges are misappropriating public money.

The video, which exploded on X with 127 million views, and was mentioned repeatedly on Fox News, resonated in MAGA circles, which denounce a social and migration policy deemed too generous.

The Trump administration immediately took action, announcing on Tuesday a freeze on funding for childcare in Minnesota.

The Department of Homeland Security said it conducted police operations Monday and Tuesday at "suspected fraud" sites in Minneapolis, a major city in the state.

The minister in charge of small and medium-sized businesses, Kelly Loeffler, has frozen funding to Minnesota "while an investigation is underway."

And Tom Emmer, elected from this northern state and a leading Republican in the House of Representatives, called for the "denaturalization and deportation of all Somalis involved in the fraud in Minnesota."

- Insults -

The treatment of the case by the Trump administration and conservative circles echoes a media sequence that occurred a month earlier.

In late November, a conservative media outlet claimed that the money diverted in Minnesota was funding the Shebab in Somalia, an armed Islamist group linked to Al-Qaeda - an accusation since denied by the prosecutor in charge of the case.

But, without waiting, Donald Trump had accused "Somali gangs of terrorizing the inhabitants" of Minnesota and ended a special status that protected Somalis from any deportation to their country.

The Republican president escalated his verbal attacks on Wednesday, declaring that Somalia was "perhaps the worst and most corrupt country on earth" and calling Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born congresswoman and staunch Democrat, an "ungrateful failure."

According to Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey, the raids carried out by immigration police have created "a dangerous atmosphere of chaos and instability."

"Trump is scapegoating a tiny fraction of the population," protested Zaynab Mohamed, a local Democratic elected official of Somali origin. "It has nothing to do with security: they want to rid the country of people like me."