Patriot Brief
- CBS News suggested an independent journalist’s exposé triggered federal enforcement and subsequent unrest.
- Federal investigations into Minnesota fraud and immigration enforcement predated the video by months or years.
- Organized anti-ICE “rapid response” networks have coordinated confrontations with federal agents.
At some point, you have to stop and ask what, exactly, we’re pretending caused what.
According to a report aired Tuesday by CBS News, the violent confrontations between federal law enforcement and anti-ICE activists in Minnesota didn’t grow out of organized resistance, coordinated “rapid response” networks, or years of documented fraud investigations.
No, the real culprit, we’re told, was a YouTube video.
CBS national correspondent Lilia Luciano suggested that an exposé by independent journalist Nick Shirley — a 42-minute video examining alleged fraud at Somali-run day care centers — effectively triggered a federal crackdown that spiraled into unrest. In Luciano’s telling, Shirley’s reporting set off a chain reaction that ended with riots, large-scale ICE deployments, and the death of Renee Nicole Good.
It’s a striking claim, not least because it requires ignoring almost everything that came before it.
Federal scrutiny of welfare and child-care fraud in Minnesota didn’t begin on December 26. Investigations into the Feeding Our Future scandal and related programs had been underway for years. City Journal documented massive abuse. Federal prosecutors had already brought charges. And by November, Donald Trump had ended Temporary Protected Status for Somalis and ordered additional federal resources into the state — weeks before Shirley’s video went live.
But in CBS’s framing, the timeline conveniently collapses. The exposé becomes the spark. The federal response becomes reactionary. And the activists who confront ICE — sometimes violently, sometimes fatally — are repositioned as downstream victims of “controversy,” rather than participants in organized resistance.
That framing glosses over uncomfortable facts. So-called “rapid response” groups in the Twin Cities openly track ICE vehicles, share agent locations, and call on supporters to physically confront federal officers. One such network’s operational manual was recently obtained and published by independent journalist Cam Higby. This isn’t spontaneous outrage. It’s coordination.
CBS also sidesteps the reality that figures like Renee Good and Alex Pretti were not random bystanders. Former MSNBC host Joy Reid described Good as an “ICE interrupter.” Pretti had previously been injured in confrontations with agents and was reportedly linked to anti-ICE networks before his death.
None of this excuses tragedy. But pretending that citizen journalism caused law enforcement to enforce the law — and activists to violently resist it — is a strange inversion of responsibility.
At its core, this isn’t really about Nick Shirley or a YouTube video. It’s about whether exposing alleged fraud is treated as journalism or provocation, and whether accountability is blamed not on those breaking the law, but on those who document it.
That’s a troubling standard. And it says more about our media reflexes than it does about the facts on the ground.
From Daily Caller:
A CBS reporter claimed Tuesday that independent journalist Nick Shirley’s expose on alleged fraud at Somali-run day care centers was to blame for the violent clashes between federal law enforcement officers and left-wing rioters.
Shirley posted a 42-minute video to YouTube on Dec. 26, featuring him visiting several day care centers run by Somalis that allegedly committed fraud. CBS News national correspondent Lilia Luciano claimed that Shirley’s videos prompted the federal crackdown on the fraud that triggered confrontations between left-wing mobs opposed to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations and the federal officers.
“But the controversy exploded on December 26th when a conservative influencer released a now viral YouTube video claiming to expose the public fraud,” Luciano claimed, later adding. “By January 5th, some 2,000 additional federal immigration agents were being deployed to the Twin Cities, its biggest operation yet. Two days later, Renee Good was killed, setting off major protests.”
President Donald Trump declared an end to “Temporary Protected Status” for Somalis on Nov. 22, days after City Journal published a report detailing significant welfare fraud in Minnesota, which some federal officials estimate to total at least $9 billion. Trump also ordered the deployment of additional federal assets to the state for a crackdown, prompting local officials like Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis to declare they would not cooperate with the federal law enforcement operations.
So-called “rapid response” groups have confronted ICE during operations in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, including during the incidents where Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good were fatally shot, triggering riots. Pretti’s neighbors told the Mirror he was involved with an anti-ICE network, while former MSNBC host Joy Reid admitted Good was an “ICE interrupter.”
Pretti suffered a broken rib during a previous confrontation with ICE in the days before his fatal encounter, CNN reported.
One such “rapid response” group in Minnesota has been monitoring vehicles used by ICE, sharing their locations, and calling for people to confront the agents, which has often resulted in physical altercations, Fox News reported. A copy of a manual apparently used by a “rapid response” network was obtained by independent journalist Cam Higby, who posted it on X Sunday night.
Photo Credit: Screenshot/Rumble/CBS