President Donald Trump ended a Cabinet meeting Tuesday with a rant against Somali migrants, accusing them of having “ripped off” Minnesota and using dehumanizing language to attack a group he has increasingly targeted in recent weeks.
Trump was asked if he thought Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) should resign over reports of extensive fraud in Minnesota’s social services system, in which dozens of Somali individuals are accused of stealing millions in government funds over the past five years. The funds were intended for housing for disabled adults, food security for children and support for children with autism but allegedly were spent on personal luxuries, including cars and real estate.
Trump answered the question by criticizing Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) — neither of whom have been implicated in the scandal — as “incompetent” politicians. He suggested that their state, which has the highest population of Somali people in the country, had taken in “garbage.”
“Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars, billions every year, billions of dollars. And they contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88 percent. They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you, okay?” Trump said. “Somebody said, ‘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 also griped that Omar, who fled civil ware in Somalia and later immigrated to the United States, complained about her adopted country too much.
“You know, our country is at a tipping point. … We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” he said. “Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”
The president’s comments came amid reports that his administration is ramping up immigration enforcement efforts targeting undocumented Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Trump recently threatened to end temporary protected status for Somali immigrants in Minnesota and, without evidence, accused “Somali gangs” of terrorizing people there.
“Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!” Trump wrote on X late last month.
At a news conference in Minneapolis on Tuesday afternoon, city leaders said they were not independently able to confirm news reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity there. Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, would not say whether the agency is conducting an operation in Minnesota or whether officers will focus on the Somali community.
“Every day, ICE enforces the laws of the nation across the country,” she said. “What makes someone a target of ICE is not their race or ethnicity, but the fact that they are in the country illegally. We do not discuss future or potential operations.”
Walz had written earlier Tuesday on X that the state welcomed support in investigating and prosecuting crime, but “pulling a PR stunt and indiscriminately targeting immigrants is not a real solution to a problem.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement that reports of 100 ICE agents pursuing Somali immigrants in the city were “credible” but did not confirm whether arrests had taken place. He warned that federal agents looking to arrest Somali people “means due process will be violated.”
“Mistakes will be made, and American citizens will be detained for no other reason than the fact that they look like they are Somali,” Frey said. “That is not now nor will it ever be a legitimate reason” for a person to be arrested.
Responding to comments Trump made Tuesday saying Somalis should be expelled from the country, Frey said, “He’s wrong, and we want them here.”
The Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, asked residents of the Twin Cities who see masked individuals purporting to be law enforcement officials to call 911. “The community should know if you see something like that,” he said, citing this summer’s killing of Minnesota state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband by a shooter dressed as a police officer.
Khalid Mohamed, who works for the city of Minneapolis, said he witnessed what appeared to be an immigration arrest Monday evening after stopping by a Somali mall in his neighborhood after work. As he was leaving, he saw a man wearing a mask and a Cubs hat get out of a vehicle with an Uber sticker on it. The man detained a Latino man, leaving his wife and children behind in their car with the engine running, he said.
“She had three kids, and she was crying; she was very confused. She had a little tiny baby, and it was cold outside,” Mohamed said. “ICE agents took the guy and left the car in the street.”
Minneapolis City Council member Jason Chavez, whom Mohamed called for assistance afterward, warned constituents Tuesday of “increased enforcement actions by agents in South Minneapolis,” including reports of residents being followed.
News of the arrest spread quickly online and through the community, and Mohamed said the district office where he works has been getting calls all day from constituents who are scared of immigration agents.
Trump has a lengthy history of maligning countries in certain parts of the world with inflammatory, even vulgar rhetoric. In 2018, he labeled Haiti, El Salvador and a group of African nations “shithole countries” during discussion of a bipartisan immigration deal.
Six years later, during the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, repeatedly went after the Haitian community of Springfield, Ohio, falsely claiming that those immigrants there were stealing and eating residents’ pets. The community lived in fear for weeks — families kept children out of school and a bomb threat forced the evacuation of public buildings — as the conspiracy theories were amplified by social media.
The Trump administration has sought to end temporary protected status (TPS) for a number of nationalities, including people from Venezuela, Haiti, South Sudan, Honduras and Nicaragua. The designation allows applicants from particular nations to live and work in the United States and shields them from deportation due to circumstances in their home countries such as war and natural disasters.
Frances Vinall and Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.
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