The White House is targeting Somalian immigrants following a report of a fraud scandal committed by dozens of Somalian nationals in Minnesota.
During Monday’s press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called out the New York Times report in the Trump administration’s latest effort to justify its crackdown on immigration enforcement policies.
“Somalian migrants in Minnesota have defrauded nearly $1 billion in taxpayer funded benefits under Democrat Governor Walz leadership,” said Leavitt.
“In the wake of last week’s atrocity, it is more important than ever to finish carrying out the President’s mass deportation operation. America cannot allow millions upon millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be rewarded with amnesty after they broke our nation’s laws to come here. They must go back to their home country,” said the Trump spokesperson, referring to last week’s shooting of two National Guard troops committed by an Afghan national.
She continued, “It is also…essential to immediately address the massive fraud and corruption that has been going on for decades in other aspects of our immigration system, most notably when it comes to asylum claims. Millions of people who have come here under false pretenses are told blatant lies now enjoy temporary legal status.”
The day before Thanksgiving, the Trump administration announced that it was terminating Temporary Protection Status for Haitian immigrants who fled their country in the midst of ongoing economic and political crises, which includes violent gang takeovers.
Since last week’s shooting, President Donald Trump appeared to escalate his rhetoric on U.S. immigration. He specifically called out Somalians in Minnesota, which is led by Gov. Tim Walz, who ran Kamala Harris’ vice presidential nominee against Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the 2024 election.
“As an example, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great state of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thanksgiving.
Using a disability slur to address Walz, Trump continued, “The seriously r*tarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both.”
Trump also called out Rep Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is the only Somalian immigrant inCongress. The president called the lawmaker the “worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our country.”
He added, “[She is] always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally…does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how ‘badly’ she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc…”
Congresswoman Omar slammed President Trump’s attacks on the Somalian community in Minnesota, telling her constituents at a rally, “We do not blame the lawlessness of an individual on a whole community.”
“What we also know is that there is not a single evidence that the president or his cronies have put forth that there is any single resource from taxpayers in Minnesota that has gone to aid and abate terrorism,” said Omar, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018.
“We are sick and tired of the president waking up one day and deciding to put forth falsehoods and demonize whole communities while the ignorant people that support him then take the lies that he’s spreading and use it as a fact,” she added.
Omar noted that Haitian communities faced similar accusations during the 2024 election cycle when Trump and Vance made the false claims that Haitians in Ohio were eating neighbors’ cats and dogs.
“That is shameful. That is ignorant. It makes us look like a stupid nation that does not believe in truth but traffics in lies. It makes the world mock us. And we are better than that.”
