Right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley, along with local conservative figure Amy Reichert and a New York Times photographer, visited and filmed San Diego child care facilities unannounced last week, Reichert said Monday in an interview on a conservative news program.
During her appearance on Real America's Voice, Reichert said she was "inspired" by Nick Shirley's December video in Minneapolis alleging fraud at Somali-run day care centers.
Minneapolis is home to the country's largest Somali immigrant population. San Diego is home to its second-largest.
"I started researching state inspection records of these day cares and a very clear pattern emerged ... there would be up to 39 kids enrolled and zero kids present," Reichert told the program's host, echoing the same type of allegations as Shirley's December Minneapolis video.
She goes on to say she sent her findings to Shirley.
"I reached out to Nick Shirley and I said, 'come on out to California,'" Reichert said.
With a New York Times photographer along for the ride the pair visited Somali-owned day care centers, Reichert said.
A Tuesday New York Times profile of Shirley includes photographs and comments from Shirley while in San Diego.
If Reichert's claims are accurate, it's almost exactly how Shirley came to Minneapolis in the first place.
According to the Times, a Minneapolis-based right-wing gadfly and failed political candidate contacted Shirley, claimed to have evidence of fraud in the Somali community, and invited him to Minneapolis.
He was there days later, according to the Times.
Reichert became a public figure during the pandemic leading efforts to reopen business and end masks mandates for children, often appearing at county Board of Supervisor meetings with boisterous and vocal like-minded activists. She also ran two unsuccessful campaigns for a seat on the board.
Reichert declined to be interviewed by KPBS but in a written statement said she hasn't made any fraud accusations.
This technique — alluding to wrongdoing but making no specific claim — is the hallmark of the type of tactics deployed in Shirley's Minneapolis video, according to Jared Holt, an expert on right-wing media and how misinformation spreads online.
"A bunch of filming of locations or people and Shirley saying, 'Isn't that weird? Isn't that strange?'" Holt said of Shirley's Minneapolis day care video. "But the claim that this is essentially a big criminal network or criminal operation is really serious."
Holt is a senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that helps researchers "analyze and monitor the spread of harmful online content, including extremism and disinformation," according to its website. He's also the host of Posting Through It, a podcast that looks at the intersection of politics and social media.
The point of Shirley's videos, Holt said, isn't to prove anything.
"Nick Shirley and people like Nick Shirley ... are making careers in an online media ecosystem that rewards sensationalism, that rewards being inflammatory and that rewards affirming the biases of what they think their audience is," Holt said.
Even without evidence the accusations had an impact. The Trump administration cited the alleged fraud found by Shirley to justify its deadly immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis.
Weeks earlier, Trump called Somali people "garbage."
His administration last month moved to freeze federal child care funding to five Democratic-led states, including Minnesota and California, but a court blocked the action pending litigation.
The harassment soon spread to San Diego, according to the local chapter of the United Domestic Workers of America.
Photos of Shirley in San Diego last week began circulating online, further stoking fear in the Somali community.
San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said the city should be alarmed that harassing behavior is being encouraged and celebrated by far-right extremists.
"Showing up uninvited to home-based family child care centers and demanding to see children is not journalism — it’s harassment," Elo-Rivera said in a statement. "It’s an act rooted in racism, dehumanization, and disregard for the safety and dignity of children and caregivers."
Elo-Rivera's district includes City Heights, home to a diverse immigrant community and a large concentration of Somali Americans.
It's not just influencers such as Shirley and Reichert knocking on doors of at-home day cares, Elo-Rivera said.
A video provided to KPBS by the council member's office shows an unidentified man knocking on the front door of an at-home day care.
Benjamin Mendoza, a spokesperson for Elo-Rivera, said the incident occurred Tuesday.
Rahmo Abdi is a director at Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, or PANA, a refugee advocacy organization.
She said the community is organized and ready to protect one another.
"Through know your rights trainings, mutual aid, and a rapid response network, everyday people in San Diego are standing up for our communities and protecting each other," Abdi said in a statement Wednesday. "This is what we do in San Diego and these are our values across California."
It's unclear when or if Shirley's video will publish. Reichert said she is expecting it next week.
Holt isn't sure the video will have the same effect in San Diego as it did in Minneapolis but isn't surprised people are trying to get on the bandwagon.
"(Shirley's) video in Minneapolis made him an overnight success — his YouTube channel gained more than a million followers," Holt said. "For other people who are aspiring influencers — who might seek that kind of notoriety or ... impact in right-wing politics — I'm not surprised that others are trying to replicate the formula or that Shirley would be kind of looking around for his next hit."
Holt recommends for anyone watching Shirley's videos, or any political influencer's video, to understand the larger media environment from which they come.
"At this point Nick Shirley is plugged into a political media machine that exists to push talking points and validate partisan leaders in their claims and suspicions," Holt said.
People have been charged with and convicted of fraud in the child care system.
In Minnesota, a 2019 state investigation led to criminal fraud charges among at least a dozen people and businesses, according to 19thNews.
In California, an LAist review of federal district court news releases statewide found only one case of child care fraud in the last decade, a 2023 San Diego case in which four people faced charges of running a child care benefits scheme.
Holt says these cases aren't indicative of systemic fraud, however.
"Like any good hyper-partisan content, there's a grain of truth under these videos," he said.
But the work Shirley produces, Holt said, isn't journalism.
"Nick Shirley is not an intrepid investigative, independent journalist," he said. "He exists as part of a media ecosystem that has very clear ideological and partisan ambitions. I would encourage people to keep that in mind and take it with a Margaritaville-sized grain of salt."
California state government officials are pushing back on the allegations.
A January news release says the presence or absence of children at any facility isn't an indicator of fraud and that there are a variety of legitimate reasons children may not be present during an inspection.
"If an inspector visits a child care home at 10 a.m., school-aged kids are in school," the California Department of Social Services said in a statement. "Therefore, the inspection report should show that a child care home serving school-aged kids had zero children present. Also, some providers serve parents who work nights or weekends."
A follow-up statement sent to KPBS Wednesday says the state pursues fraud when it occurs and shuts down bad actors.
Mayor Todd Gloria's office did not respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration is reportedly pulling 700 immigration agents from Minneapolis but hasn't announced whether it is preparing another surge operation elsewhere.
KPBS asked the San Diego U.S. Attorney's Office if federal prosecutors have been told to prepare for such an operation here — a spokesperson declined to comment.
