Autism billing fraud in the news again
What is the situation to which political figures are referring?
Since at least 2022, news sources have covered a story about shady and apparently illegal activities in services for children with autism and their families living in Minnesota. Some of the people accused of fraudulent billing for services (including applied behavior analysis) are part of the Somali-American community in Minneapolis. Initially, the fraud was alleged to have occurred in pandemic-era food distribution activities. However, over the ensuing years, the miscreants moved to putatively billing for ABA services. The combination of corrupt behavior on the part of members of an immigrant group have formed the basis for political attacks since the story became public.
The political aspects of the story are illustrated in these two articles:
State of the Union: JD Vance to Lead War on Fraud—Jasmyn Jordan, 24 February 2026 in Breitbart and
From day care fraud to suitcases full of cash: Somali fraud is worse than you think—by Senator John Cornyn in the Washington Examiner on 25 February 2026.
Here are links to reports referring to the story in the last weeks of February 2026:
Trump administration cuts some Medicaid funding to Minnesota alleging fraud—by Matt Sepic and A Martinez of NPR news from 26 February 2026;
What’s up with Minnesota Somali fraud?—by an AI bot for Factually 23 February 2026.
Special Education Today published an article about this matter on 3 January 2025 (updated 4 September 2025): “More ABA Medicaid fraud: What happened in Minnesota?” Readers can find background and context in that article, as it includes more than a half dozen links to contemporaneous news reports.