ST. CLOUD, MINN. — The owner of a Somali daycare center that has faced scrutiny over state and federal funding and is linked to a massive fraud settlement won a seat in the Minnesota legislature Tuesday night.
Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) candidate Abdi Daisane defeated a Republican incumbent to win Minnesota’s House District 14A seat in St. Cloud, Minnesota, becoming the first Somali-born lawmaker in the statehouse from St. Cloud, MPR News reported.
Daisane, who delivered part of his victory speech in Somali, is the CEO of Blooming Kids Child Care Center in St. Cloud, which has received $7.29 million from the state-run Child Care Assistance Program since 2018.
His childcare business also received $598,251.62 from the federally-funded Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) since 2020. A nonprofit called Partners in Nutrition, which recently had to pay an $18.5 million civil settlement for fraud, was the center’s sponsor for CACFP funds.
A press release from the settlement says Partners in Nutrition “knowingly defrauded the State of Minnesota out of millions of dollars in federal child nutrition funds during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, in violation of the Minnesota False Claims Act.”
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Fox News Digital visited Blooming Kids Child Care Center on Thursday and found a quiet scene. The child care center is situated along a main road in St. Cloud’s small downtown. A paper sign on a wooden front door that faces the street directs visitors to a different entrance. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows next to the door are covered with a tinted and mirrored film.
The building is flanked by a parking lot that was mostly empty on Thursday afternoon.
Behind the building is a tiny fenced-in playground, anchored by two children’s jungle gyms that appear to fill most of the area.
Alpha News reported on the funding in late October, and spoke with a nearby worker who said they never saw children entering or exiting the childcare facility. The outlet also reported that Blooming Kids Child Care Center has been cited for over a dozen violations.
Additionally, questions about the immigration status of Daisane’s wife, Ayaan Aydid, have circulated online after a video surfaced of her detailing to BBC how she crossed into the United States at the southern border.
Daisane did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
News of Daisane’s victory quickly sparked pushback on social media.
“We are a lost state,” Red Ax Strategies President Matt Brodsky posted on X. “We should cede it to Canada.”
“MINNESOTA IS SO FREAKING COOKED,” conservative commentator Eric Daugherty posted on X.
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“Minnesota is done,” conservative personality Gunther Eagleman posted.
ACT for America founder Bridgette Gabriel flagged a post about Daisane’s election — and his purported illegal immigrant wife — to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin on X.
“[G]reat opportunity to do something about this,” she said.
