US President Donald Trump has said he does not want Somali immigrants in the US, telling reporters they should “go back to where they came from” and “their country is bad for a reason”.
“I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” he said at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Trump said the US is “going the wrong way if we continue to take garbage out of our country”.
His alarming comments come as immigration authorities are reportedly planning an enforcement operation in the large Minnesota community.
State officials condemned the plan, arguing that it unfairly treats American citizens who may be from the African Nation.
Minneapolis and St Paul, together known as the twin cities, are home to one of the largest Somali communities and the largest in the US.
In his comments on Tuesday, which came at the end of an hour-long televised cabinet meeting, Trump said: “I don’t want them in our country. That’s OK. I’m not worried. I don’t want them in our country.”
“In Somalia, which is almost a country, you know, they don’t have, they don’t have anything. They’re just running around killing each other. There’s no structure,” Trump said.
He then turned to criticize representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat and the first Somali-American to be elected to Congress with whom he often mixed.
“I’ve always looked up to him,” Trump said, adding that Omar “hates everybody. And I think he’s an incompetent person”.
“His contentment shocked me,” Omar said in a social media post. “I hope he gets the help he needs.”
RabaeThe US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been ordered by the Trump administration to target unidentified Somali immigrants, according to US Partner CBS News on Tuesday.
Hundreds of people are expected to be targeted when the operation begins this week, the official said. The New York Times first reported the operation.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the ice, refused to comment on the planned operation and denied that any people were targeted based on race.
“Every day, ice enforces the laws of the land across the country,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
“What makes a person a target is not their race or ethnicity, but the fact that they are in the country illegally,” he said.
In a news conference, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said that an operation through the ice “means due process was violated”.
According to local leaders, there were about 80,000 people who lived there at the beginning of Somalia, and most of them were American citizens.
The Trump administration intensified its crackdown on immigration in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard Members in Washington DC last week, killing Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and critically wounding Andrew Wolfe, 24.
The suspect, who was arrested and charged with murderoriginally from Afghanistan.
Last week, Trump said on social media that he plans to end temporary protected status – a program for immigrants from other countries who live in Minnesota. Several hundred immigrants will be affected in that order.
Homeland Security Kristi Noem also proposed Tuesday her will on VISA fraud in Minnesota.
Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world, and many of the migrants who moved to the US in the 1990s stayed in the country for decades.
Local Minnesota leaders have condemned the Trump Administration’s reported plan.
Minnesota State Senator Zaynab Mohamed said to x that “if the ice agents associate with Somalisay here, they will know what we have been saying for years in the US: Almost all of us are US citizens”.
Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who is the running mate of Kamala Harris and who supports the president and stopping immigrants from a problem. “