Last week, a viral video swept through Minnesota’s social media feeds, igniting a firestorm around day care centers participating in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). The video, produced by YouTuber Nick Shirley and viewed more than 116 million times according to CBS News, alleged that several Minneapolis-area day cares were effectively empty, taking in taxpayer dollars without actually providing care for children. The footage showed Shirley visiting nine day cares, including the now-infamous Quality Learning Center, and finding no children present. The video quickly became a political flashpoint, especially as Minnesota continues to grapple with a much wider fraud scandal involving social services.
But as the dust settled, a closer look by several news organizations—including 5 INVESTIGATES, CBS News, and The New York Post—painted a different, more complicated picture. According to 5 INVESTIGATES, every operational day care featured in the video had an active state license, with the exception of two centers that appear permanently closed. State inspectors had visited all the functioning facilities in 2025, several within December alone. The inspections uncovered between three and ten safety violations per center, including inadequate allergy plans, unsafe play areas, hazardous objects, and incomplete background checks for staff. However, crucially, none of the official records reviewed alleged any fraud or documented an absence of children.
Quality Learning Center, the focal point of much of the online outrage, was open for business on Tuesday, December 30, 2025. Reporters from 5 INVESTIGATES observed a steady stream of children and parents coming and going from the Nicollet Avenue facility after it opened at 2 p.m. Lafayette Robinson, a day care consultant for the center, confirmed, "They are open, no one ever said that they were closed. Everyone is trolling a troll." She added, "Whenever [licensing officials] come out, there’s always kids in the building. They are unannounced visits." Robinson declined to comment directly on whether any wrongdoing was occurring but expressed confidence that there was none.
State records show that in June 2025, Quality Learning Center was cited for ten safety violations, ranging from unsafe crib mattresses and missing parental permissions for administering medicine to child areas not being in good repair. These are serious concerns, but again, no mention of fraud or missing children appeared in the reports. The Department of Human Services’ online license lookup tool, which tracks these infractions, was temporarily overwhelmed by public interest but soon restored.
Yet confusion persisted at the highest levels of government. On Monday, December 30, Tikki Brown, commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), told reporters that Quality Learning Center had notified the state of its intent to close on December 19. However, the center ultimately reversed its decision and remained open, with children observed at the facility throughout the week of December 29. Brown also said her agency planned to send inspectors back to the sites featured in the viral video, but as of press time, the results of those visits had not been released.
Further muddying the waters, The New York Post reported that even as Brown announced the closure, at least 20 children were seen entering the Quality Learning Center on December 29, 2025. The center’s manager, Ibrahim Ali, flatly denied the fraud allegations, telling the Post, "Do you go to a coffee shop at 11 p.m. and say, ‘Hey, they’re not working’?" The facility’s hours—Monday through Thursday from 2 to 10 p.m.—may have contributed to some of the confusion. The day care’s sign, which had infamously been misspelled as “Quality Learing Center,” was finally corrected on December 30 after becoming a meme in its own right.
Not everyone in the neighborhood was convinced by the day care’s explanations. One local resident told the Post, “We’ve never seen kids go in there until today. That parking lot is empty all the time, and I was under the impression that place is permanently closed.” But parents like Fatima Noor told WCCO they had been sending their children to Quality Learning Center multiple times a week for months, contradicting claims that the facility was a front.
The viral allegations came amid a broader, deeply troubling backdrop. Minnesota’s social services have been rocked by a multibillion-dollar fraud scandal involving food handouts, autism programs, and housing subsidies. According to The New York Post, over $1 billion has been misappropriated so far, with dozens of arrests—many involving Somali immigrants. Videos obtained by Fox 9 even show alleged kickbacks being handed to parents. State Rep. Elliot Engen, a candidate for state auditor, told the Post, “We can assume this has been going on for decades. Minnesotans should be furious about this. Americans should be furious about this because not only have their politicians failed them, they went a step farther. This wasn’t an accident. They were engaged in this themselves.”
Yet when it comes to the day cares highlighted by Shirley’s video, no official record supports the claim of widespread fraud—at least so far. CBS News found that all but two of the centers featured had active licenses and had been inspected by state regulators within the last six months. Sweet Angel Child Care, Inc., for example, underwent an unannounced inspection as recently as December 4, 2025. The violations found were mostly related to safety, cleanliness, equipment, and staff training—not fraud.
At ABC Learning Center, another facility targeted in the video, Director Ahmed Hasan said that security footage from December 16, 2025, showed families dropping off children throughout the day. When Shirley and his entourage—some of whom were masked—arrived around noon, staff refused them entry, citing safety and recent ICE activity. Hasan insisted, “Every day is like this,” and attributed Shirley’s video to political motivations. Umi Hassan, the day-to-day operator, echoed those concerns, saying, “When one Somali does something wrong, we all get collective punishment.”
The viral video’s impact was immediate and personal. Both day care operators and landlords like Fardowsa Ali reported receiving a flood of phone calls, some supportive, others threatening. Governor Tim Walz weighed in on social media, stating, “We’ve spent years cracking down on fraudsters. It’s a serious issue—but this has been his plan all along. He’s politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”
Calls for greater transparency have only grown louder. State Rep. Nolan West sent a letter to Commissioner Brown demanding clarity on how the DCYF keeps inspection timing confidential and whether anything resembling the viral video’s claims had been uncovered. “The department should prioritize maximum transparency with the public. Failing to do so undermines public trust at a critical time,” West wrote.
As investigations continue, the facts remain stubbornly nuanced. While Minnesota’s social services are undeniably facing a historic reckoning over fraud, the specific day care centers at the heart of the latest viral outrage appear—at least for now—to be guilty mainly of safety violations and poor communication, not the absence of children or outright fraud. The story is far from over, but the rush to judgment has already left a mark on families, workers, and communities alike.