Inside ‘Little Mogadishu’: Minnesota’s beleaguered Somali community under a cloud of fraud and Trump attack
Fox News Digital visited ‘Little Mogadishu’ in Minneapolis to hear from Somali residents as national debates over integration and welfare fraud intensify
By Michael Dorgan Fox News
Published December 6, 2025 11:30am EST
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Minnesota is home to the nation’s largest Somali community — a rapidly expanding Muslim population that has become a flashpoint in national debates over integration, welfare fraud and how the group is reshaping the state’s historically Scandinavian, Christian cultural landscape.
That scrutiny intensified this week after President Donald Trump blasted Somali Minnesotans as welfare abusers who have been raiding state coffers for years.
"I hear they ripped off — Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars, billions every year. … They contribute nothing," Trump said, amid news that some Somalis were involved in bilking that state out of hundreds of millions of dollars in various fraud schemes.
"I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you. Somebody says, ‘Oh, that's not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country’s no good for a reason. Their country stinks and we don’t want them in our country."
Trump and members of his administration have also accused the population of committing immigration fraud in order to bring friends and relatives to the U.S. and again claimed Rep. Ilhan Omar married her brother — a charge she has repeatedly denied.
For years, accusations of crime and gang activity — and the fact that a small cohort of Somali Minnesotans traveled overseas to join al-Shabaab — have cast a long shadow over the community’s efforts to assimilate.
more
https://www.foxnews.com/us/inside-little-mogadishu-minnesotas-somali-community-its-push-belonging