Jan 23 Day of Action
Find Your Legislators and Members of Congress
Continue to Kids Count on Us

The federal funding freeze must end. Minnesota’s Congressional delegation must act. Sign the letter to call for:

  1. The immediate reversal of the federal funding freeze affecting childcare and related family supports.

  2. Emergency financial supports to address the real and growing harm this freeze is causing to providers, families, workers, and local economies.

  3. Federal and state leaders to prioritize stability, clarity, and timely funding for essential childcare infrastructure.

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Kids Count on Us Statement Regarding the Federal Administration’s Freeze of Childcare Payments in Minnesota

SAINT PAUL — December 31, 2025

“Kids Count on Us, an initiative of ISAIAH, condemns the federal administration’s decision to freeze childcare payments in Minnesota based on a misleading, viral video that has been used to deliberately seed distrust in the state’s childcare system and stoke fear toward Somali Minnesotans.

“Let’s be clear. No one is more outraged by fraud in childcare than the providers, parents, and workers who rely on childcare assistance to survive. This outrage cuts across race, religion and geography. Fraud harms children. It harms families. It undermines trust. And those closest to the system have the greatest stake in rooting it out. But freezing childcare payments to tens of thousands of families is not accountability. It is collective punishment. It does nothing to identify wrongdoing by individuals, and it does everything to destabilize an entire system that working families depend on.

“This decision turns childcare into a political football. A single misleading video has been elevated into a justification to freeze federal funds, while long-standing dog whistles about Somali communities are used to make people suspicious of an entire group of providers and parents. That is reckless and dangerous. Over 20,000 children in Minnesota rely on the Child Care Assistance Program. When childcare collapses, parents cannot work. Hospitals lose staff. Businesses shut down. Entire sectors grind to a halt. This is how you manufacture chaos, not public trust.

“Kids Count on Us calls on the federal administration to immediately unfreeze childcare payments and allow the actual work of investigation to take place. If individual centers have committed fraud, they are currently being investigated and they should be held accountable. Do not exploit fear, misinformation, or racialized suspicion to advance a political agenda that defunds childcare and makes life more expensive for working families. Our children are not pawns. Childcare is not a game. And communities should not be scapegoated to score political points while all families pay the price.”