Somali woman wags her finger at journalist who asks her if she’s running a daycare out of stunning Seattle home
A headscarved woman scolded a journalist for asking whether she ran a daycare at her Washington home, at a time when Somali-owned fraud schemes were in the spotlight nationally.
Day care centers across the country are under intense scrutiny after the massive Somali fraud scandal in Minnesota was revealed.
The federal government froze all child care payments to the state on Tuesday after independent journalist Nick Shirley shared images of an apparently empty daycare in Minneapolis with a misspelled name sign.
The FBI is also investigating fraud, and Director Kash Patel said Minnesota believes it is “just the tip of a very large iceberg.”
In Washington, local independent journalists turned their attention to Somali-run day care centers in their state.
On Tuesday, an unidentified headscarved woman, who has not been charged with a crime, was seen wagging her finger at Discovery Institute Senior Journalism Fellow Jonathan Choe outside her Seattle home.
‘Is this a real nursery? Do you know that nursery scams continue in Somalia? ‘We’re trying to check if this is a real nursery,’ Choe asked.
‘I am working. ‘You don’t need to come to my house,’ said the woman.
A headscarved woman scolded a journalist who asked if she ran a daycare at her Washington home
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown (pictured) warned journalist on social media not to come to home daycare providers and ‘harass’ them
‘Where are all the children? If you have a nursery, where are all the children?’ the journalist asked.
‘I don’t have to… I don’t have to tell you what I have or what I don’t have,’ he said.
Notably, the Seattle Public School system is on winter break from December 22 to January 2, and it is unclear whether children will be attending day care when the interaction occurs.
When Choe asked if he could prove the nursery was legal, he responded with a wave of his finger, ‘I’m not proving anything for you.’
Later that day, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown posted on social media that his office had received numerous complaints of harassment from members of the Somali community.
“Following reports of in-home day care providers being harassed and accused of fraud, my office has received support from members of the Somali community with little to no checks,” Brown wrote.
‘Going onto someone’s porch, threatening or harassing them is not an investigation. It is also not valid to film minors who may be at home. This is unsafe and potentially dangerous behavior.
‘I encourage anyone experiencing threats or harassment to contact local law enforcement or our office’s Hate Crimes and Bias Incident Hotline.’
According to a 2024 report from the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), 283 of the state’s 5,779 daycare providers list Somali as their primary language.
The unidentified woman, who was not falsely accused, told independent journalist Jonathan Choe that she did not have to prove anything to him.
Independent journalist Nick Shirley shared images of an apparently empty nursery in Minneapolis with a misspelled name sign after the massive fraud scandal in Somalia was revealed.
Washington’s Democratic Governor Bob Ferguson said: KOMO He said he was unaware of any fraud schemes in the state.
‘I think we can all agree that anyone who breaks the law in Minnesota or any state should be held accountable. If there is fraud, you need to be held accountable, I don’t care who you are,’ Ferguson said.
He added that he stands with the Somali community and has received reports that Somalis do not feel safe in the face of national attention.
‘That society is afraid; Their children are also afraid. So I was there to express my support for them during a challenging time, but of course, if anyone is breaking the law in anything we do as a government, of course we will take action,” Ferguson said.
Washington State Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh told the local news outlet that he welcomes federal accountability.
‘We don’t know for sure and we need to be careful. “Some or a lot of this money may be being spent correctly,” Walsh said.
‘But emerging evidence suggests that some of these childcare centers appear to be vacant and have been vacant for some time.
‘This does not exclude any race or ethnic group. “This is about state government projects and programs that use taxpayer dollars, and we want to make sure those dollars are spent properly?”
The Daily Mail has contacted DCYF for comment.
