A few of Minnesota’s Somali neighborhood stated that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers already begun enforcement operations within the state.
Minneapolis Councilman Jamal Osman, who’s of Somali descent, instructed ABC Information in an interview final Wednesday that places for English as a second language programs, locations of worship and houses have been focused.
The deployment of ICE in Minnesota comes at a time after President Donald Trump brought up Minnesota’s large Somali community in final Tuesday’s Cupboard assembly, saying he didn’t need these from the northeast African nation in America as a result of “they contribute nothing.”
“This isn’t the America that I think about,” Osman stated. “What we’re seeing isn’t just politics; it is harmful.”
Jamal Osman in Minnesota, of Somali descent, was saddened to listen to President Donald Trump’s disparaging remarks about his neighborhood.
ABC Information
The councilman stated these with social safety numbers and work permits, and people ready for asylum interviews have been focused, in addition to U.S. residents. Osman stated that persons are afraid to go away their homes, and he’s advising these of Somali descent to hold passports in every single place they go.
“[I] by no means knew there will likely be a day that you need to present your authorized doc in the US [because you look Somali],” Osman stated to ABC Information on Wednesday. “However the actuality is persons are not leaving dwelling with out their passport.”
ICE stated on Thursday that brokers had arrested 12 individuals in its Minnesota enforcement operation, the Related Press reported. Of these, six are Mexican nationals, 5 are from Somalia and one is from El Salvador, based on the information gathering service.
The Division of Homeland Safety, which oversees ICE, didn’t instantly reply to ABC Information’ request for an replace on the variety of individuals arrested.
Amiin Harun, an immigration lawyer of Somali descent in Minneapolis, instructed ABC Information in an interview on Wednesday that the overwhelming majority of Somalis dwelling in Minnesota are residents, everlasting residents or documented asylum seekers.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin instructed ABC Information on Wednesday that the company enforces the legal guidelines of the nation.
“What makes somebody a goal of ICE isn’t their race or ethnicity, however the truth that they’re within the nation illegally,” McLaughlin stated in her assertion. “We don’t talk about future or potential operations.”
McLaughlin didn’t reply to ABC Information’ query about whether or not ICE enforcement had already launched in Minnesota.
Federal officers from ICE and different businesses stand guard throughout an immigration raid of a house in St. Paul, Minnesota, November 25, 2025.
Tim Evans/Reuters
Harun instructed ABC Information on Wednesday that considered one of his shoppers who has everlasting standing to be within the U.S. was visited by ICE brokers at her dwelling on Tuesday. The lawyer stated the brokers occupied her residence for 3 hours earlier than she was in a position to present proof of her authorized standing, inflicting her a lot nervousness and concern.
“I do not need them in our nation; I will be sincere with you. Any person will say, ‘Oh, that is not politically appropriate.’ I do not care. I do not need them in our nation. Their nation isn’t any good for a purpose. Their nation stinks,” Trump said of Somali immigrants in final Tuesday’s Cupboard assembly. “And we’ll go the unsuitable approach if we preserve taking in rubbish into our nation.”
Osman appeared saddened when ABC Information requested his ideas on the president’s remarks about his neighborhood.
“The concern of getting your entire nation simply look and see us, and have a look at us as rubbish and fewer human,” the councilman stated. “No human is a rubbish.”
Trump’s feedback got here a day earlier than Home Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer introduced in a press release obtained by ABC Information on Wednesday that the committee has began an investigation into claims of fraud that middle on Minnesota’s Somali neighborhood.
Previous to Trump’s Cupboard assembly feedback, a Nov. 30 New York Times investigation detailed claims from legislation enforcement that over the previous 5 years, “fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora, as scores of people made small fortunes by establishing corporations that billed state businesses for hundreds of thousands of {dollars}’ value of social companies that have been by no means offered.”
Osman conceded that there very effectively might have been fraud happening with sure people.
“There’s a technique of justice,” Osman instructed ABC Information on Wednesday. “There’s that course of, however we shouldn’t be having the entire whole neighborhood blamed.”
Estimates of the theft have been estimated at $300 million by prosecutors, based on the AP. The variety of defendants, whose circumstances are nonetheless being processed, is roughly 78, the AP reported.
“There are over 80,000 individuals in Minnesota who’re Somalis,” Minnesota State Sen. Zaynab Mohamed instructed ABC Information in an interview on Friday. “So we’re speaking about few individuals who have dedicated crimes.”
Minnesota State Senator Zaynab Mohamed stated that Somalis have added an important deal to the financial progress of Minnesota.
ABC Information
Comer — a Republican — has despatched letters to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Legal professional Normal Keith Ellison searching for paperwork, communications and data as a part of the investigation, the Home Oversight Committee stated in a press release final week.
“The Committee has severe considerations about the way you because the Governor, and the Democrat-controlled administration, allowed hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to be stolen,” Comer wrote to Walz, based on the Home Oversight Committee’s Wednesday assertion.
Walz stated in a press convention on Thursday that his workplace is working to carry these concerned in fraud in Minnesota to justice, however stated it may be achieved with out generalizations about a complete group of individuals.
“You are able to do that with out being racist and vile and placing individuals in danger,” Walz stated at a Thursday information convention. “You are able to do that with out canceling applications that enhance individuals’s lives as a result of just a few individuals took benefit of the system.”
Legal professional Normal Keith Ellison didn’t mince phrases when referring to Trump and ICE’s deployment in Minnesota.
President Donald Trump speaks throughout a Cupboard Assembly within the Cupboard Room of the White Home in Washington, December 2, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP through Getty Pictures
“Donald Trump’s disgraceful assaults on Minnesota’s Somali neighborhood are injecting extra of his toxic racism into our beloved dwelling state,” Ellison stated in an X put up on Tuesday. “Listening to him single out our individuals primarily based solely on their race and nation of origin is downright disgusting.”
Minnesota has the most important Somali neighborhood within the U.S. with roughly 87,000 residents, based on the AP. Most have been coming for the reason that Nineties to flee a protracted civil conflict in Somalia.
Throughout his Cupboard assembly on Tuesday, Trump stated that Somali immigrants are extremely depending on the U.S. social security internet and add little.
“We’re your medical doctors, your nurses,” Mohamed stated to ABC Information in an interview on Friday. “We’re the people who find themselves caring for your mother and father when you go to work.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stated in a Thursday press convention that the Somali neighborhood is a part of the “cloth” of Minneapolis and makes the town a “higher place”.
“We have now acquired experiences about numerous scattered incidents by which federal brokers have been concerned in some type of exercise. In lots of circumstances, these actions are largely constructed round terrorizing individuals,” Frey stated at a information convention on Thursday.
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, talking at a information convention, Dec. 4, 2025, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Steve Karnowski/AP
Trump stated in a Reality Social put up final month that he would finish Short-term Protected Standing for Somalis in Minnesota, a lawful safeguard from deportation for immigrants from sure international locations experiencing hardship. Harun instructed ABC Information on Wednesday that roughly 705 Somalis nationwide are coated by TPS.
“This nation has a historical past of various ethnic teams being focused at completely different occasions — whether or not it is the Italians, the Irish, the Japanese, the Native People, African People. That is simply what’s taking place to the Somali neighborhood,” Harun stated to ABC Information. “I’d simply urge all of us to face collectively and to defend. When considered one of us is attacked, we’re all being attacked.”
ABC Information’ Justin Fishel, Hannah Demissie, Lauren Peller, Isabella Murray, Alexandra Nice, Oren Oppenheim and Michael Pappano contributed to this report.
