Minnesota boasts the largest population of Somalis in the U.S. — a community that's recently faced attacks from President Trump.
On Tuesday, Trump called Somali immigrants "garbage" and said he wanted to send them "back to where they came from." He continued on Wednesday, saying, "they've destroyed our country and all they do is complain, complain, complain."
The tirade came less than two weeks after Trump threatened to strip temporary legal protections from Somali migrants living in Minnesota.
President Donald Trump talks after meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025, in Washington.
Immigration
Trump says he's terminating legal protections for Somali migrants in Minnesota
Trump and other conservatives have also recently seized on criminal investigations and news reports of fraud in Minnesota's social services system — some of which was allegedly committed by Somalis — to disparage the entire community.
Now, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to target Minnesota and its Somali population in an upcoming immigration enforcement operation, The Associated Press and other outlets reported this week.
Nearly 80,000 people of Somali descent currently live in Minnesota, roughly 78% of whom reside in the Twin Cities, according to the St. Paul-based group Wilder Research.
But it didn't begin with the Twin Cities. Rather, some of the first Somali immigrants to enter the U.S. in the late 1990s came to a town called Marshall, about 150 miles west of Minneapolis, according to Minnesota author Ahmed Ismail Yusuf, who wrote the book Somalis in Minnesota.
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/03/nx-s1-5631809/somali-immigrants-minnesota-twin-cities-trump-ilhan-omar
