YouTuber Who Found “Somali Fraud” Backs Probe Into “Jewish Invasion”
Just one day after Republicans invited Nick Shirley to join them at the State of the Union address, the right-wing YouTuber endorsed a copy-cat of his work warning against a “Jewish invasion.”
“EXPOSE IT ALL,” Shirley wrote on X, sharing a post from fellow right-wing content creator Tyler Oliveira announcing his recent 73-minute “documentary on New Jersey’s Jewish Invasion.”
Oliveira’s portfolio includes clips titled “I Deported ILLEGAL Immigrants with ICE!” and dozens of videos dehumanizing Black people. In 2024, he published and amplified unverified (and since debunked) claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were causing “constant car crashes” and were capturing and eating local pets.
But somehow, blatantly targeting the Jewish community was a step too far for Oliveira’s far-right audience.
“The replies to this tweet show the double standards and hypocrisy of half of the ‘republican influencer’ space,” Oliveira wrote, defending his work against droves of online critics. “Does welfare abuse/fraud only suck when it’s a Somali? Ask your local ‘MAGA Republican influencer’ where he draws the line.”
Oliveira was also banned from Patreon over the video, though it wasn’t the first time he released a controversial piece about Jewish communities. In January, the 26-year-old posted a video to YouTube titled “Inside the New York Town Invaded by Welfare-Addicted Jews…”
But in a testament to the genre’s political affiliations, known white supremacist Nick Fuentes defended Oliveira’s latest doc, claiming that “when it comes to African Somali Muslims, everything is tolerated... When another guy does the exact same thing to the Jews, ‘This is another hоӏоcаսѕt.’”
Shirley clearly feels similarly.
Shirley gained national notoriety last year after he published a video that inspired the conservative caucus to politically scapegoat Somali immigrants. Vice President JD Vance circulated the video, positing that Shirley had “done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 @pulitzercenter prizes.”
In his widely circulated “investigation,” Shirley door-knocked a slew of Somali-run day care centers in Minnesota, arguing that sites that did not respond or allow him—an unannounced, unknown white man—entrance into a center filled with children had fraudulently accepted federal funding.
It would later emerge that elements of Shirley’s report were incorrect or inadequately reported: at least two of the centers featured in his video had been closed for several years, according to Minnesota’s Department of Children, Youth and Families. The government had already investigated federal fraud in Minnesota—during the Biden administration, more than 90 Minnesotans were charged, at least 60 of which resulted in convictions.
Nonetheless, the report resulted in the suspension of $185 million intended for Minnesota from the Department of Health and Human Services.
It also stirred a national services controversy in which predominantly blue states were accused of abusing federal funds for programs focused on childcare and local poverty. In truth, states of all stripes across the nation have participated in benefits abuse, but not everyone suffered the federal cuts. Instead, Donald Trump axed $10 billion from five Democratic states, including Minnesota.