Trump says he doesn’t want Somalis in U.S. as ICE plans operation

US President Donald Trump said he did not want Somali immigrants entering the United States, telling reporters they should “go back to where they came from” and that “nothing good comes to their country.”

“I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” he told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Trump said that if we continue to bring trash into our country, the United States will be on the wrong path.

His disparaging comments come as immigration authorities are reportedly planning an enforcement operation in Minnesota’s large Somali community.

Somalia’s prime minister responded that he would not take Trump’s comments seriously and suggested they be ignored.

Minnesota officials have decried the reported immigration enforcement action plan, saying it could unfairly target U.S. citizens who appear to be from the East African country.

Minneapolis and St. Paul, known together as the “Twin Cities,” are home to one of the largest Somali communities in the world and the largest Somali community in the United States.

The reported plans and Trump’s comments represent an intensification of the president’s recent attacks on Minnesota’s Somali community and its Democratic politicians, including his recent pledge to revoke the community’s decades-long protected status in the United States.

Trump has also recently expanded a months-long immigration crackdown following the shooting deaths of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., last week, allegedly by an Afghan who immigrated to the United States. Trump made no mention of the incident when speaking about Somalis.

“I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you, OK,” Trump said, speaking at the end of an hour-long televised Cabinet meeting.

“Someone will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country.”

He added: “Somalia is barely a country, you know, they have nothing. They just go around killing each other. There is no structure.”

He then turned to criticizing Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, the first Somali-American elected to Congress and with whom he has clashed repeatedly over the years.

“I always look at her,” Trump said, adding that Omar “hates everybody. I think she’s an incompetent person.”

“His obsession with me is creepy,” Omar responded in a social media post. “I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.”

The Trump administration has directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to target undocumented Somali immigrants in the Twin Cities, a source familiar with the matter told BBC 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 ICE, declined to comment on the planned operation and denied that anyone would be targeted because of race.

“Every day, ICE enforces state laws across the country,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

“The reason someone is targeted by ICE is not because of their race or ethnicity, but the fact that they are here illegally,” she said.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a news conference that ICE’s actions “represent a violation of due process.”

According to local leaders, there are about 80,000 Somalis living there, the vast majority of whom are American citizens.

Last month, Trump said he planned to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — a program for immigrants from crisis countries — for Somali residents living in Minnesota. Hundreds of immigrants will be affected by the order.

TPS for Somalis has been in place since 1991 due to conflict in the country.

Earlier this week, Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her agency would crack down on visa fraud in Minnesota.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant announced an investigation into allegations that state tax funds may have been diverted to Somalia’s al-Shabab Islamist militant group, part of al-Qaeda. The investigation follows unconfirmed reports in US media that have been denied by the militants.

Somalia is one of the world’s poorest countries, and many immigrants to the United States left in the 1990s during the country’s decades-long civil war.

When reporters asked about Trump’s comments, Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said he had not heard them personally but had been briefed on them. He pointed out that Trump not only talked about Somalia, but also made similar remarks about other African countries, especially Nigeria and South Africa.

The prime minister said his government would rather not raise the issue.

“There are some things you can deliver with ‘salaman,'” he added, using a Quranic expression that means responding to an offense with peace rather than confrontation.

“It’s more harmful to identify the problem and give it importance than to simply move on,” he said.

Meanwhile, local leaders in Minnesota directly condemned the Trump administration’s reported ICE action plan.

Minnesota Sen. Zaynab Mohamed said on

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 presidential election, has been feuding with the president in recent days. “We welcome support in investigating and prosecuting crime. But PR stunts and indiscriminate targeting of immigrants are not the real solution to the problem,” he said.

Trump has recently expanded an immigration crackdown after National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was killed and Andrew Wolfe, 24, was seriously injured in a shooting in Washington, D.C., last week.

Officials said the suspects entered the United States in 2021 as part of a program targeting Afghans who had spent 20 years working with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and were considered at risk of retaliation after U.S. troop withdrawals.

On Tuesday, Noem said she would recommend a travel ban on several countries that she claimed were “inundated” with crime in the United States.

Earlier, the United States suspended all decisions on asylum applications and announced a review of green cards issued to individuals immigrating to the United States from multiple countries. Trump also threatened to “permanently halt” immigration from what he called “third world countries.”

Addiat Report from Ali Ali