Federal Freeze Frame

The first cut is deep, and always leaves the same scar

A Note

There's real fraud in Minnesota. Real people are in prison for it.

Now the Trump administration has frozen all child care money for the state. It used a viral video targeting Somali daycares as the reason. This is happening as ICE raids target Hispanic and Somali communities in Minneapolis. The administration calls it immigration and fraud enforcement.

Targeting vulnerable communities is a way to govern that hurts everyone. And when the money stops, the cold spreads predictably. It finds the people in the oldest federal ledger.

So let's talk about that ledger.

The federal government just turned off the money. Again.

But this time it's child care funds for Minnesota. And the stated reason is alleged state-wide fraud in Somali American communities.

So we should ask what this means for the other governments within that state, the Native Nations. And for the 87 percent of Native people who don’t live in their nation’s lands.

History offers a simple answer. When the federal government decides to retreat, freeze and defund, it's Native programs that feel the cut first and worst. It’s a pattern older than statehood. The policy of Termination in the 1950s aimed to end the federal relationship altogether. Congress said it was about "freeing" Indians. But the result was the loss of Indigenous land and federal services.

Look at the White Earth Nation. It has a contract with Minnesota to run the Child Care Assistance Program for its citizens. That money flows through the state. A freeze on state payments is a freeze on White Earth’s program.

Now look at the bigger picture. A July 2025 analysis found that nearly a third of cancelled federal grant programs contained the word "tribal." That one word flagged nearly $700 million in stalled payments to Minnesota tribes alone. The pattern of freezing is already here.

“This disruption is not an accounting error,” said Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians Chairman Jamie Azure, reviewing the 2025 data. “It is a policy choice that directly breaks trust responsibilities.”

The legal framework is the trust doctrine. The federal government has a duty to protect Native assets and well-being. But the data point makes it concrete. The Administration for Children and Families sends $185 million in child care funds to Minnesota annually. That money is now frozen.

So a political fight over fraud in one community becomes a blanket freeze for all. The mechanism is the same. A federal agency decides the state is not in compliance. The spigot is closed.

And for that 87 percent, the urban Native families, the dominoes fall in a straight line. No child care subsidy means no safe place for the kids. That means a parent, often a mother, cannot go to her job. Miss a shift, lose the job. No job, no rent money. No rent money, eviction.

There are moments for pause. The mostly Indigenous women who take care of the next generation. Their sleeves have been rolled up since they were born but this added stress does not make this any easier. My friend Big Stu Perkins. He gets up with bad legs and missing toes to drive Native kids all the places Native kids need to go. Will this mountain of a man, with a heart bigger than the neighborhood we were raised in, have a job? One that is so important to urban Indigenous communities. The math is brutal and it starts with a frozen payment from an agency in Washington.

The oldest relationship in this land pays the tab. Again. And the bill arrives first in an apartment, far from any Native Nation’s border.