According to Newsweek and KOMO News, there are 275 to 293 Somali-speaking childcare centers in Washington state that participate in state subsidy programs.
“Somali-speaking” typically means the staff speak Somali in addition to English. Citizen journalist Nick Shirley’s Minnesota video (posted Dec. 26, 2025) exposing taxpayer subsidized Somali speaking child care centers having no children sparked copycat investigations in states with large Somali communities, including Washington.
Washington-based independent journalists like Cam Higby, Jonathan Choe and others visited and filmed a number of taxpayer-subsidized, Somali-speaking childcare centers in the Seattle area from Dec. 29 to Dec. 31.
The Washington state government response was swift. By Dec. 30, Gov. Bob Ferguson had posted pictures of his meeting with Somali community leaders. The purpose of the meeting was to address Somali community concerns about backlash, harassment and doxxing of Somali-run daycare centers. Community members described Nick Shirley-inspired visits as harassment and sought protection from officials.
On Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2025, Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown issued a statement addressing reports of harassment and unsubstantiated fraud accusations against Somali-run childcare providers. In this statement, he warned that showing up unannounced, threatening, harassing or filming minors is not legitimate investigation and could be unsafe or dangerous. Our attorney general encouraged reporting suspected fraud through proper channels (e.g., DCYF) and harassment to police or his office’s hate crimes hotline.
Good luck with that.
The problem here is that all the visits from citizen journalists in Minnesota and Washington showed very clearly that there were no children and no childcare activities at taxpayer subsidized childcare centers.
So the issue isn’t “harassment.” The issue is fraud. Where is the money going and who is authorizing the payments? Rest assured, though, state law enforcement is never going to investigate and state officials are never going to share with us what is going on.
Robert Crocker
Chehalis
