Nick Shirley did not come out of nowhere. At just 23 years old, the YouTube journalist has spent the last two years crisscrossing the country documenting stories the legacy media refuse to touch, especially the chaos at the southern border under former President Joe Biden. But his latest investigation out of Minnesota exploded online, pulling in nearly 4 million views and exposing patterns of government-funded daycares where numerous state visits showed there were no children present.
If Minnesota were the tip of the iceberg, the potential for fraud, waste, and abuse in California is the glacier itself.
Inspired by Nick Shirley’s reporting, I began an alphabetical review of California Department of Social Services daycare inspection reports. I am a lifelong Californian and a state-licensed investigator, and it did not take long to find the same red flags: inspectors showing up unannounced, dozens of children listed as enrolled, and again and again, zero or only a few children physically present over multiple visits.
For months, people begged Nick to come to California. Through mutual contacts, I shared with him what I was finding in California daycares. And Nick said yes to California.
One of our first stops was Medina Learning Center in San Diego. The facility could not even spell its own name correctly on the sign, reading “Madina Learning Center,” and it sat inside a run-down strip mall. Before we ever knocked, I had already pulled every state inspection report online and even reviewed the six-inch-thick licensing file in person. The records told a disturbing story long before we arrived.
Traveling with Nick meant armed security, and for good reason. We met three of his security guards in a gas station parking lot, men who looked straight out of central casting. Nick has received credible, specific threats against his life. And once word spread that we were knocking on daycare doors in San Diego, social media posts began calling on leftist rapid response networks to track him down and treat him the way they treat Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. One of the comments posted: “Someone please find this foo and give him the Kirk treatment so his mom can play Erika”
At Medina Learning Center, state inspection records showed a repeated pattern. Inspectors documented only a handful of children present during numerous unannounced visits, even while enrollment figures were reported as high as 39. In August 2025, inspectors discovered that an assistant director had worked five days a week for two to three months without a background check, resulting in a $4,000 fine. The center’s reported enrollment then abruptly tripled to full capacity. Despite that surge on paper, follow-up inspections continued to show just a few children present, raising serious questions about enrollment reporting and oversight after repeated enforcement actions.
At another daycare, we knocked on the door midday. A woman recognized Nick instantly and shouted through the frosted window on the front door, “You are Nick Shirley. I am naked, and I can sue you.” She disappeared briefly, returned, and repeated the threat.
In that moment, I realized I was living inside a viral YouTube video in real life. Next, I asked the only logical question: “Why are you naked in a daycare?”
What followed was yelling, filming, and screaming that Nick had come to California and had done enough damage in Minnesota already. The woman filmed her outburst, and it went viral on social media.
On the second day of our investigation, we only had one security guard. We later found out the hard way that we needed all three. A New York Times photographer was also in the car with us and documented our visits. Word had fully spread, and a San Diego City Council member issued a press release labeling Nick a right-wing extremist YouTuber and me a MAGA attention seeker and accusing us of “harassment of Somali Childcare Providers.”
None of the daycares we visited were chosen because of race or ethnicity. Facilities were reviewed alphabetically and selected based on repeated violations, missing enrollment records, and inspection histories showing low or zero attendance alongside high reported enrollment.
One of our stops made me cry. At a daycare located in an apartment complex, we found two small children sitting alone outside the front door. No adult in sight.
Licensing reports routinely cite facilities when a child takes just a few unsupervised steps out a door. These children were fully outside. When we knocked, no one answered. The boys told us their teacher was driving. Nick immediately suggested finding an adult to watch them. As we walked away, that’s when I began to cry, knowing those boys had been left alone, pressed up against a door, waiting for an adult to make them feel safe.
Moments later, everything escalated. Multiple vehicles boxed in our rental van. We got inside, managed to pull out of the area, and realized we were being followed. Our armed security was driving the car, and we were able to get to safety.
In the coming days, as Nick Shirley’s California investigation goes viral, expect the familiar response: not accountability, not hard questions about daycares receiving government payments, but hit pieces from the mainstream media aimed at “investigating the investigators.” It is easier for politicians to name-call those exposing the official state records than to confront what the records reveal.
Independent journalism comes with a cost, and in this case, the price is obvious. When a 23-year-old citizen journalist exercising his First Amendment rights needs armed security to do his job, it tells you everything you need to know about how threatening the truth has become, and how much some would prefer it never see the light of day.
