In Minnesota, fear and resolve after Trump attacks Somali community

Minnesota’s large Somali community is fearful after President Donald Trump intensified his criticism of the community in recent days and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched an operation in the region, members told Newsweek.

“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country,” Trump said of the community during a December 2 Cabinet meeting. “We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”

“Somalians should be out of here,” he told reporters at a White House event the following day. “They’ve destroyed our country.”

Abdullahi Abdulle, an urban planner and veteran of the Minnesota Army National Guard, told Newsweek that many in the community have started carrying passports and legal documents every time they leave their homes in anticipation of being stopped by ICE.

Minnesota State Representative Samakab Hussein, a Democrat and the first Somali American to represent Saint Paul in the state’s legislature, told Newsweek that Trump’s remarks have fueled fear and confusion, with many terrified to go about their lives. “They’re afraid to go out to the grocery store, they’re afraid to send their kids to school,” he said.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Newsweek the president is “absolutely right to highlight the problems caused by the radical Somali migrants that the Democrats let invade our country and steal from American taxpayers.”

Refugees from war-torn Somalia have been welcomed to Minnesota since the 1990s, drawn by job opportunities and the state’s generous social services. The state is home to nation’s largest Somali population, with about 84,000 people of Somali descent living in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area.

In recent years, that community has had to reckon with the fallout from a huge welfare fraud scandal. Many but not all of the defendants in those cases are of Somali descent and most are U.S. citizens.

Trump dubbed Minnesota “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” after a conservative news outlet, City Journal, reported last month that taxpayer dollars from defrauded government programs have flowed to the Somali militant group al-Shabab. Federal prosecutors have not charged any defendants with supporting terrorists.

Those cases are being “used as an excuse to smear the entire Somali American community,” Abdulle, a former member of the New Brighton City Council, told Newsweek. “This is reckless and dangerous, and a sitting president should know better.”

Ahmed Samatar, a professor of international studies at Macalester College in Saint Paul and an expert on Somali studies, told Newsweek:“I think most upright Somalis in the state of Minnesota accept that those [people] should be taken to the courts and the rule of law should be brought on them.”

Kowsar Mohamed, a community organizer from south Minneapolis, called it a “red herring,” saying Trump was seizing on the fraud cases to distract people from the crises Americans are facing.

“We’re dealing with Medicaid, Medicare challenges. We’re dealing with food insecurity across the nation,” she said. “This community is being torn up from within to really create a level of forgetfulness around what is actually happening within our economy.”

“No particular community is homogeneous or a monolith,” she said, adding that it was “insane” to paint the entire community with the same brush.

Representative Hussein, said he would be the first person to call for those who committed fraud to face accountability, but said it was sad the scandal was being used to “diminish” the entire community.

ICE’s Minnesota Operation

Trump’s comments came as federal agencies were preparing an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota focusing primarily on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S., the Associated Press reported last week, citing a person familiar with the planning.

On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said in a news release that agents with ICE had arrested “some of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” since it launched Operation Metro Surge in the Minneapolis area. The news release listed seven people arrested, including three from Somalia.

Most people of Somali descent in Minnesota and the U.S. are U.S. citizens, according to the American Community Survey, an ongoing survey conducted by the Census Bureau.

A big concern, Mohamed said, is that they will be mistakenly detained by immigration agents and “then no one knows where they are.”

“That is the biggest concern for folks,” she said. “No one wants to get lost in the system.”

Abdulle said many in the community have started carrying passports. “Most of these people are U.S. citizens who are afraid to be targeted by ICE because of the color of their skin or their national origin,” he said. “This is unconstitutional, and it is un-American.”

Representative Hussein said ICE activity has increased in the past week, alleging that agents were racially profiling residents.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek in statement that allegations that ICE officers “engage in ‘racial profiling”’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE.”

McLaughlin added: “What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S.—NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.”

She said that under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, agents use “reasonable suspicion” to make arrests.  “If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability,” she added.

Economic Impact

Hussein also hit back at Trump’s remark that the community contributes “nothing,” pointing to an economist’s estimate that Somalis in Minnesota have an estimated $8 billion impact on the state’s economy and pay about $67 million in state and local taxes annually.

Mohamed told Newsweek that those figures demonstrate how much the Somali community contributes to Minnesota’s economy. “We know that when tax revenue increases in a particular community, it allows for infrastructure investments,” she said. “This community, in particular, invests back into the community that has invested in them.”

Trump’s comments “are just not true,” Samatar said.

He said it is “undeniable” that Somali immigrants in Minnesota have been successful, thriving in fields including business, health care, technology, education and local government. “I am one of those Somalis who have lived in the United States for almost 45 years, and I have educated so many American students,” he said.

Political Divide

The White House’s Jackson said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 Election against Trump—has “allowed Somali refugees to turn Minnesota into a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity to fund lavish lifestyles overseas at the expense of American taxpayers. While the media and Democrats feign outrage, Americans who have suffered at the hands of these schemes will celebrate the President’s comments and strong support for AMERICAN citizens.”

A rise in the community’s political power helped the election of the first Somali American to Congress, Representative Ilhan Omar, and other Somalis have served in the state Legislature and on the Minneapolis and Saint Paul city councils.

Hussein said Trump’s attacks on the Somali community are a political tactic designed to sow division. “It’s part of political strategy to target immigrants and communities of color when the polling numbers drop or when attention is slipping away,” he said.

It is just the latest instance of Trump “doubling down on empty, hateful rhetoric to divide the country,” Abdulle said.“He has done this so many times in the past by going after Mexican or Haitian immigrants, and unfortunately, I don’t think this will be the last time the president will spew hate and division.”

And Hussein said the community will stand firm and united. “Let’s be clear, we are nation built by immigrants. We are Minnesotan, we are Americans, and we are not going anywhere,” he said. “This is our home and we will face this challenge with unity, dignity and unwavering resolve.”