Minnesota Child Care Scandal: A Cautionary Tale for New Mexico?

12.30.2025

The Holidays are usually a quiet time for news, but with the release of a VERY viral video by Minnesota blogger and journalist Nick Shirley (watch below) poses some serious questions for New Mexico politicians as they consider adopting an even more generous “free” child care system courtesy of both federal and state taxpayers. Check out the full Nick Shirley story below the post.

You can read up on Minnesota’s child care system, but there are a few critical points to be known that differentiate it from New Mexico.

Minnesota’s program is not free to the user. It is primarily federally funded. It is also limited to low income families and “only” 22,000 children. New Mexico’s program would be free, funded with a much larger percentage of state dollars. It would be universal and it already serves 33,000 children before it became “universal.” Minnesota as 5.8 million people to New Mexico’s 2.1 million so proportionally New Mexico’s “free” program is MUCH bigger than Minnesota’s and is set to nearly double in spending terms.

While it doesn’t seem like much enforcement is happening in Minnesota and we wonder about fraud and abuse beyond the Somali community (which of course is tiny in New Mexico) there are SOME safeguards here in New Mexico. Check out the website of the Early Childhood Department. There you can find information about all of the centers including information regarding on-site inspections.

Here is one such form from the Little Amigos Child Development Center in Las Cruces. There seem to be some significant issues at the center from May 2025 when the inspection was performed.

A second report from an Albuquerque area child care center also contains a great deal of missing information. 

With concerns already being voiced about the lack of providers what measures will New Mexico politicians put into place to ensure that not only are these centers safe places to send our children, but that they are servicing the kids as they are supposed to and not defrauding the taxpayers? This issue was bound to be a concern from the start, but with Minnesota’s fraud situation so clearly out of control the issue is even more pertinent.