In the days since the President said he would end the legal immigration status program for Somalis in Minnesota, local elected officials and community members said they would fight back.
On Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote that he would “immediately end, effective” the Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota. Trump wrote that Minnesota was a “hotbed of fraudulent money laundering activity.” “Send them back where they came from. It’s over!” He has written.
Advocates for the community said rhetoric that stigmatizes all Somalis is wrong and puts them at risk. They are concerned about increased targeting for immigration enforcement and the demonization of the Somali community.
The move comes after several high-profile cases of fraud in state programs, including against Somali residents, which have been exaggerated by right-wing media. A recent article alleged that these fraudulent activities meant that Minnesota taxpayers were funding terrorist groups in Somalia. Republican members of Minnesota’s Congress subsequently submitted a letter demanding an investigation.
“If someone, regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity, has committed fraud, they should be held personally accountable under the law,” said Khalid Omar, an organizer with the interfaith group ISAIAH. “Collective punishment is wrong and racist, and using the actions of a few to attack an entire community is un-American.”
TPS allows people from countries with unsafe or unstable conditions to stay in the US legally. Any administration can approve or remove it through the Department of Homeland Security, as the Trump administration has done for countries like Venezuela since Trump took office in January. The department has not yet removed Somalia from countries with this status.
Typically, removing TPS would apply to the entire country, not just a single state like Minnesota, making Trump’s promise to remove it only for one state, and seemingly unrelated to Somalia’s stability, legally questionable.
Julia Decker, policy director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said, “Obviously, the fraud investigation in the United States has nothing to do with whether conditions in Somalia have stabilized or not.”
Minnesota is home to the country’s largest Somali population, the majority of whom are US citizens. In response to supporters of Trump’s announcement, Ilhan Omar, a congresswoman and a frequent target of Trump and his allies, said in a statement on
TPS currently protects about 700 people from Somalia living across the US from deportation – a small number compared to the thousands of Somalis living in Minnesota.
“It goes without saying that for those who will be affected, this is certainly and incredibly worrisome, because it means they will lose the ability to work to support themselves, and they will be faced with leaving the country, potentially being arrested and detained and deported,” Decker said.
Somalia has been covered by the TPS since 1991, having received extensions to protected status dozens of times. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she was evaluating whether to extend the status, which is set to expire in March.
State Attorney General Keith Ellison said his office is “considering all our options” to respond if Trump rescinds TPS.
“Trump’s announcement to terminate Somali TPS holders in Minnesota is legally problematic – while a President has plenty of authority to designate and revoke TPS, he cannot legally use that power to discriminate against an ethnic group or target a state like MN. This is not over,” Ellison wrote on X.
Omar said the community held a potluck this weekend in response to Trump’s targeting, where members of the Somali community and their neighbors and supporters gathered in a show of solidarity. He said people think Trump’s attacks on Somalis are a distraction from the affordability crisis and Trump’s other problems – something Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has also hinted at in his reaction to the president’s post. “It’s not surprising that the president has chosen to broadly target an entire community. That’s what he does to change the subject,” Walz wrote on X.
Omar said Somalis in Minnesota are “the backbone of this community” who have the same concerns and experience struggles as all Americans. “They’re not going anywhere,” he said.
“The only thing we know that can stop this administration from attacking people is ordinary people standing up and pushing back against this narrative,” he said.
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