Some San Diego child care providers say they are being harassed and fear for their safety amid a campaign by conservative activists and the Trump administration over broad but unsubstantiated suggestions of fraud.
Meanwhile, billions of dollars in child care funding is up in the air after the Trump administration last week moved to freeze $10 billion in funding for social services, including child care and cash assistance for low-income families, in five Democratic-led states until it investigates.
A New York federal judge temporarily halted the freeze on Friday, a day after the five states challenged the freeze in court. The states called it a politically motivated, “extraordinary and cruel action” and said the administration has shown neither evidence of fraud nor the legal authority to withhold mandated program funding.
The freeze could affect $5 billion in funding due to California that helps pay for state child care subsidy programs serving more than 300,000 children of low-income families. The subsidies come in the form of vouchers that families use to pay child care providers.
In the past week, conservative activists have been posting on social media the names and phone numbers of child care providers, including in San Diego County, suggesting without evidence that they are benefiting from public funding but not actually providing child care.
Several local providers say that since then, they have begun seeing people loitering outside their homes or sitting in parked cars with cameras, watching them.
Ramla Sahid, executive director of the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, speaks at a news conference to condemn recent harassment of Somali child care workers at the United Domestic Workers (UDW) office on Jan. 8, 2026, in San Diego. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
One San Diego child care provider whose name and phone number were posted online by a local activist said that ever since then, her phone has been “flooded” with calls, and she has seen people loitering around her home with recording devices. The San Diego Union-Tribune is not identifying her due to safety concerns.
“This has raised serious safety concerns for my family and my business. It’s not right!” she wrote in a text message.
The harassment is also racist, providers say — those in San Diego who have been targeted are overwhelmingly of African or Middle Eastern descent.
Samsam Khalif, a Somali American who has been a family child care provider in San Diego for 18 years, was frightened last week when, as she was driving children to her home for a day of child care, she saw two men with a camera sitting in a car outside her home.
She circled the block a few times, but they didn’t leave until she got out of her car and walked the children to her home. They drove away, she said, after they saw her with the children.
Khalif said she is so scared that she avoids going out unless she has to go shopping. She reactivated her home security system last week.
Samsam Khalif, a child care provider, left, along with Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera and Supervisor Paloma Aguirre, attended a news conference to condemn recent harassment of Somali child care workers at the United Domestic Workers (UDW) office on Jan. 8, 2026, in San Diego. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The safety concerns are especially acute for family child care providers, who run child care businesses out of their own homes. Some providers have their own children or other family members living at their place of business.
Yessika Magdaleno, a family child care provider of 25 years, said last week she hasn’t faced harassment yet but worries she will, considering she is an officer with a child care providers union.
She counseled her young-adult children last week on safety, telling them to look out for anybody who may be watching or following them, and to be ready to call 911 if anyone threatens them.
“You do your work with fear. You don’t know who’s going to show up at your place, and you have all of these little children in your care,” said Magdaleno, who lives in Orange County and is the United Domestic Workers union president for the district that includes San Diego County.
“They’re doing things that, as a child care provider, you will never think will happen to you. Because all you’re doing is taking care of the children and educating them, right?”
The harassment has drawn attention from local Democratic leaders.
“What the hell are we doing here where children, at day care, might be subjected to extremists showing up at the door of the home that they’re receiving care, to investigate whether or not there’s actually child care happening?” San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said at a UDW news conference Thursday. “Child care should be universal and should be affordable for everyone, and it sure as hell should be saved from extremists.”
The targeting — plus the potential loss of funding — has shaken an industry in California that has been historically underpaid, understaffed and run almost entirely by women, most of them women of color and many immigrants.
Government subsidies for child care cover only some of the cost of care, despite California’s recent additional increases in subsidy rates for providers and funded child care slots.
Child care providers frequently make personal sacrifices to run their businesses, often putting in long days, enlisting family members to work unpaid or forgoing adequate pay and benefits, such as time off for themselves. In 2024, the median annual wage for a child care worker in California was $38,220, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Child care providers are some of the most hardworking, selfless, incredible humans that are raising our future generation,” said Kimberly McDougal, senior vice president at YMCA Childcare Resource Service in San Diego County. “The fact that they’re even having to go through this is sad.”
Child care leaders now worry that losing funding could force some child care providers to close their doors, which would exacerbate California’s child care shortage.
“It’s very fragile. Child care providers operate … on a very, very razor-thin line, subsidies being so low,” said Max Arias, chair of Child Care Providers United, a union that represents more than 40,000 family child care providers in California.
Children watch television at ABC Learning Center in Minneapolis, Minn., on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
The harassment comes as the White House targets child care providers and Somali communities, part of a growing conservative focus following years of state and federal investigations into allegations of fraud in Minnesota’s child care system and social services, some involving Somali American business owners.
That has culminated in what the Trump administration has called its largest immigration enforcement action, with thousands of officers deployed last month to Minnesota in part to investigate the child care fraud allegations. That crackdown led to last week’s killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer Wednesday.
In early December, Trump shocked observers with his racist comments during a Cabinet meeting in which he called Somali people “garbage” and said, “They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country.”
Weeks later, a conservative YouTuber named Nick Shirley posted a video in which he recorded Minneapolis Somali-run child care businesses and accused them of fraud, claiming they got public funding but did not serve children. Afterward, Minnesota investigators visited 10 businesses he identified and found that nine were operating normally; the 10th had not yet opened for the day when officials arrived.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey speaks during a news conference following reports that the Trump administration would be targeting Somali immigrants in the Twin Cities, at City Hall in Minneapolis, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (Leila Navidi/Star Tribune via AP)
Shirley’s video prompted other conservative activists around the country, including in San Diego, to follow his lead.
In San Diego, one proponent of unfounded fraud allegations has been activist Amy Reichert, who founded Restore San Diego in 2020, an organization whose stated goal is to “get the government out of our lives.”
In the past week, Reichert has promoted her claims on Fox News and identified by name more than a dozen San Diego County family child care providers on the social media platform X, saying they do not actually serve children.
Her posts contained excerpts from publicly available state reports, with providers’ names and phone numbers listed, that noted if there were no children present at the time of their unannounced visits; some reports also noted violations of state regulations, such as missing child or employee records.
Child care providers have called the claims unfair and based on false assumptions. “There are many reasons why children may not be present when an inspector is on-site,” said McDougal of YMCA’s Childcare Resource Service.
Providers identified on social media said children weren’t there at the time of inspection because they serve children after school or at night; others had kids absent due to illness. Not all children who are enrolled are present in child care at the same time, depending on their families’ schedules.
“They (are) just accusing us. And that’s lying. And that’s wrong for you to put lie(s) out there,” Khalif said.
Reichert told the Union-Tribune she had not contacted any of the providers; she said she “didn’t want to give any appearance of harassment.”
The child care subsidy system has several procedures in place to protect against fraud, McDougal said. Her organization and Child Development Associates are the two nonprofits that administer subsidies to providers in San Diego County.
The nonprofits check providers’ enrollment with their licensed capacity, review thousands of monthly attendance sheets, validate signatures and verifications of employment and eligibility and compare providers’ rate sheets to invoices, among other things, McDougal said.