Newspapers are not here to protect narratives. They are here to publish facts — even when those facts are uncomfortable.
In Minnesota, publicly available data show that approximately 81 percent of Somali-headed households receive some form of public assistance, including Medicaid, SNAP, or cash aid. That figure is not rumor or social media chatter; it comes from census-based analysis. Welfare participation, by itself, is not a crime — but pretending the number does not exist helps no one.
At the same time, court filings from the U.S. Department of Justice show that in several of the largest recent fraud prosecutions involving government programs in Minnesota, a majority of those charged were of Somali descent. That is not an accusation against a community. It is a statement about who appears in the charging documents.
Those two facts can exist at the same time. Refusing to print one because it makes people uncomfortable is not journalism — it is avoidance.
Critics will immediately argue that publishing these numbers fuels stereotypes. That argument assumes readers are incapable of understanding nuance. This paper rejects that assumption. Adults can grasp the difference between welfare use and welfare fraud, between individual defendants and an entire population.
What deserves scrutiny is not ethnicity, but oversight.
Minnesota’s state government — where all five statewide executive offices are held by Democrats and the Legislature is evenly split or narrowly controlled by the same party — has been responsible for administering and overseeing these programs. That is not partisan finger-pointing; it is a statement of who is in charge when failures occur. Accountability follows power.
Closer to home, in Rockland County, New York, roughly 9 percent of households receive SNAP benefits, and nearly 30 percent of residents are covered by Medicaid. Public assistance is widespread, necessary, and legitimate. But precisely because these programs matter, oversight matters even more.
Fraud is not cultural. It is not racial. It is not political. It is what happens when large sums of money flow through systems with inadequate controls and timid enforcement.
Newspapers should not shout slogans, but they should not whisper facts either. Publishing verified statistics is not an attack — it is an invitation for public discussion.
The facts are now on the table. Readers can decide what they mean.