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Former Minnesota Viking and University of Minnesota football player Jack Brewer said he's seen high-end business involving the "elite" Somali population in Minnesota up close. In the process, he witnessed a demographic and class transformation in his home state.
"You go to one of them, and they have Bentley and Maserati dealerships in Minnesota. I know because I’ve done business with them, and I’ve been endorsed by them as an athlete," Brewer told Fox News Digital.
"Now, you go in there, and some of their main customers are these Somali fraudsters buying high-end cars in a state that gets four months of sunlight and decent weather. They’re driving around sports cars like you would see in Beverly Hills or South Beach Miami, all off the back of the American taxpayer."
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Images of empty daycare centers have become a sudden cultural flashpoint across the nation. Minnesota is embroiled in a growing scandal after revelations that potentially billions in taxpayer dollars were distributed fraudulently through members of the state's Somali population.
Brewer recalls the moment he began to see that reality take shape, when the Somali population began to suddenly boom across his state 28 years ago. He witnessed this as a husband to a Muslim American legal immigrant.
"I have been in Minnesota a long time. My wife was born and raised there, from a family of immigrants that came from the Middle East, came to America, assimilated and not just assimilated but actually made me more patriotic," Brewer said.
INSIDE ‘LITTLE MOGADISHU’: MINNESOTA'S BELEAGUERED SOMALI COMMUNITY UNDER A CLOUD OF FRAUD
"I saw Somalians coming there in droves. They had their own section of town and slowly started taking over the city of Minneapolis."
The Somali population in Minneapolis and St. Paul grew significantly starting in the early to mid-1990s, driven by refugees fleeing Somalia's civil war, with substantial numbers arriving after 1991 and continuing through the 2000s.
The collapse of Somalia's government in 1991 led to widespread conflict, forcing millions to flee the country. At the time, Brewer was just a child in Grapevine, Texas. By the time he transferred from SMU to the University of Minnesota, the Somali population was estimated at approximately 15,000 people, according to the Minnesota State Demographic Center.
By the time Brewer joined the Minnesota Vikings in 2002, at least 5,123 Minnesota students reported speaking Somali as their primary language at home, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Over the years, Brewer, as a pro athlete with endorsements, witnessed the transactions involving local Somali immigrants who were attaining wealth. He began to witness their growing influence on local culture and religion.
"You turn on your TV. Have you ever seen a mayor on television waving a foreign country’s flag and dancing and trying to rally people to support Somalia over supporting America? … When you walk through Minneapolis, you hear Islamic sirens going off because they’ve come in here with that culture, trying to bring in Islamic culture," Brewer said.
"This is a spiritual battle like we haven’t seen in a long time."
A recent investigation by activists Ryan Thorpe and Christopher F. Rufo found that federal counterterrorism sources confirmed millions in funds for Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program, Feeding Our Future and other state-sponsored organizations were sent to Somalia and that the terrorist group Al-Shabab may have obtained that cash.
Approximately 40% of households in Somalia get remittances from abroad. Thorpe and Rufo reported that, in 2023, the Somali diaspora sent $1.7 billion to the country, which was higher than the Somali government's budget that same year.
In the Land of 1,000 Lakes, political power and welfare funds found their way to the Somali population.
The state saw the rise of several prominent Somali politicians, including U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, state senators Omar Fateh and Zaynab Mohamed and St. Louis Park Mayor Nadia Mohamed, all Democrats.
"These people have embedded themselves into the political world, where now they are leveraging the federal government to fund their campaigns, to send money overseas to Somalia and to build luxury condos and create a lifestyle for people in Somalia off the back of the American taxpayer," Brewer said.
"For me, as a former Minnesota Viking, as a former Gopher, I got my undergraduate and my master’s degrees from the University of Minnesota. I was a captain on both of those teams. It’s one of the most embarrassing times I’ve ever had for a state that I’ve proudly said helped turn me from a boy into a man."
Brewer, a business owner, added that he's moved many of his assets out of the state in recent years.
"I’ve pulled back many of my investment interests in the state and moved business interests elsewhere because of what we’ve seen post-George Floyd," he said.
Somali residents previously told Fox News Digital they are angered the entire community has been saddled with what they say is an unfair reputation, blaming a small minority of fraudsters and criminals for the negative attention against the entire group.
"Somalis in Minnesota are hard-working folks. Many of them work two jobs, and yet about 75% are still poor," Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Minnesota Executive Director Jaylani Hussein previously told Fox News Digital.
"There are entrepreneurs, successful restaurants — people in trucking, IT and even corporate America — making significant changes. But those positive stories don’t get much attention."
About 36% of Somali Minnesotans lived below the poverty line from 2019 to 2023, more than triple the U.S. poverty rate of 11.1%, according to Minnesota Compass, a statewide data project. Somali-headed households reported a median income of around $43,600 during that period, far below the national median of $78,538.
Najma Mohammad, a hair stylist who came to the U.S. as a child, previously told Fox News Digital, "Most people think just because some people are bad and Somali, that every Somali is bad, which is just a stereotype."
Brewer stands behind the state's patriotic Muslim legal immigrant population, which he is connected to personally through his wife's family.
"Witnessing their family — the way they do business, the way they love this country, what they stand for, their patriotism — I’ve learned from it. I’ve become better from it. I’ve loved my country more from witnessing my in-laws. So, I know what’s possible," Brewer said.
"They did that by moving to Minneapolis and building their businesses. It can happen, and it does happen. That’s what this country was built upon."
But he also wants to see President Trump take drastic measures in response to the recent developments.
"I would put a freeze on all immigration until we get a handle on the depth of this fraud and the depth of the corruption that has taken place." Brewer said. "We need to get all these foreign terrorists out of our country. That should be a collective effort between our armed forces, our local law enforcement, our communities, our leaders, our churches — everyone — to protect our land."
Fox News Digital's Michael Dorgan and Rachel Wolf contributed to this report.
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