Minnesota Daycare Center Featured in Viral Video Closes

The daycare is one of many centers that have been subject to scrutiny amid alleged wide-scale welfare fraud in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Capitol building is seen in St. Paul, Minn., on Dec. 8, 2025. Jenn Ackerman/The Epoch Times

A Minnesota daycare center featured in a viral video has shut down, according to the state’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families.

“Quality Learning Center requested closure of their license, and it was closed effective Jan. 6, 2026. The provider is unable to reopen without reapplying for a license,” media relations specialist Spenser Bickett confirmed in an email to The Epoch Times on Jan. 9.

The Quality Learning Center was featured prominently in a video by YouTuber Nick Shirley.

The daycare has been the subject of numerous state agency violations, with the most recent visit by state authorities on June 23, 2025.

These violations included areas used by children that were not in good repair, failure to obtain written parental permission before administering medicine or topical products, failure to post the daycare’s license in a prominent place, and failure to place children in the correct age category.

The Quality Learning Center, which was licensed for 99 children, criticized Shirley’s video, saying that he visited the center outside of its hours, and denied the allegations of fraud.

“There’s no fraud going on whatsoever,” Ibrahim Ali, a manager at the center, told reporters outside the center on Dec. 29.

“Are you trying to record that we’re doing fraud, or are you trying to put the Somali name and fraud in the same sentence?” he said. “That’s what really hurt us the last couple of days.”

The state has not found there to be fraud at the center.

The Quality Learning Center’s sign outside its building initially read the “Quality Learing Center,” with the word “learning” being spelled incorrectly—as shown in Shirley’s video. The sign was eventually corrected.

The closure comes as the Trump administration has halted child care funding to Minnesota.

The daycare is one of many services that have been subject to scrutiny amid alleged wide-scale welfare fraud in Minnesota, especially among the Somali population.

So far, 98 people—85 of Somali descent—have been indicted, and more than 60 individuals have been convicted in welfare fraud cases in the state, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“The allegations of fraud coming out of Minnesota are egregious,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said in a Jan. 9 statement.

“Every American should be angry. These federal funds are supposed to be used for improving children’s lives. Every dollar stolen is a dollar taken away from a family who needs it,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said in a Jan. 9 statement.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said at a press conference on Jan. 6 that President Donald Trump is using the issue of alleged fraud in Minnesota as an excuse to attack the state.

Walz said that Minnesota is “under assault like no other time in our state’s history because of a petty, vile administration that doesn’t care about the well-being of Minnesotans.”

Shirley’s viral video evoked strong reactions from the Trump administration.

“One fraudulent business in Minnesota that misspelled ‘learning’ on its building received $1.9M this year while masquerading as a daycare,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who reposted the video, wrote on X on Dec. 27, 2025.