NYT (“Trump Calls Somalis ‘Garbage’ He Doesn’t Want in the Country“):

President Trump unleashed a xenophobic tirade against Somali immigrants on Tuesday, calling them “garbage” he does not want in the United States in an outburst that captured the raw nativism that has animated his approach to immigration.

Even for Mr. Trump — who has a long history of insulting Black people, particularly those from African countries — his outburst was shocking in its unapologetic bigotry. And it comes as he started a new ICE operation targeting Somalis in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region.

“These are people that do nothing but complain,” Mr. Trump said at the tail end of a cabinet meeting at the White House, during which he sometimes appeared to be fighting sleep. But when the subject turned to immigration, Mr. Trump made a point of lashing out.

“When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,” Mr. Trump added as Vice President JD Vance banged the table in encouragement.

He said Somalia “stinks and we don’t want them in our country.” He described Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, who came to the United States from Somalia as a refugee and became a citizen 25 years ago, as “garbage.”

“We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’”

I’ll say this for President Trump: no one can accuse him of a dog whistle here.

AP (“Federal authorities plan operation in Minnesota focusing on Somali immigrants, AP source says):

Federal authorities are preparing a targeted immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota that would primarily focus on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S., according to a person familiar with the planning.

[…]

The enforcement operation could begin in the coming days and is expected to focus on the Minneapolis–St. Paul area and people with final orders of deportation, the person said. Teams of immigration agents would spread across the Twin Cities in what the person described as a directed, high-priority sweep, though the plans remain subject to change.

The prospect of a crackdown is likely to deepen tensions in Minnesota — home to the nation’s largest Somali community. They’ve been coming since the 1990s, fleeing their country’s long civil war and drawn by Minnesota’s generous social programs

An estimated 260,000 people of Somalian descent were living in the U.S. in 2024, according to the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey. The largest population is in the Minneapolis area, home to about 84,000 residents, most of whom are American citizens. Ohio, Washington and California also have significant populations.

This seems drastic, but maybe Twin Cities leaders are desperately pleading for help.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey pushed back against Trump’s depiction of Somalis, saying it “violates the moral fabric of what we stand by in this country as Americans.”

“They have started businesses and created jobs. They have added to the cultural fabric of what Minneapolis is,” Frey said Tuesday.

The mayor vowed that the city’s police officers, many of whom are Somali, will not work with any federal agents doing immigration enforcement, saying “it’s not their job.”

“Targeting Somali people means that due process will be violated, mistakes will be made, and let’s be clear, it means that American citizens will be detained for no other reason than the fact that they look like they are Somali,” he said. “That is not now and will never be a legitimate reason.”

Because I have friends who live in the Minneapolis area, I’ve been aware of the large Somali population for quite some time. Until Trump started making it an issue, though, I don’t recall it being a matter of national concern

While Minnesota was long lily-White—over 98% in every Census from 1850 through 1970—the Black population has steadily increased in recent decades. It went from 1.3% in 1980 to 2.2% in 1990 to 3.5% in 2000 to 5.2% in 2010 to 7.0% in 2020. That’s almost entirely a result of Somali in-migration and births. Combined with a more recent explosion in the Asia-Pacific Islander population (from essentially none in 1970 to 5.3% in 2020), the White population is down to 77.5%.

The influx of Somali migrants began in the early 1990s, as over a million fled to escape the ravages of the civil war. While a frigid climate populated overwhelmingly by those Northern European descent seems like an odd place for predominantly Muslim population from the Horn of Africa to go, the local Lutheran relief agencies were welcoming.

There have certainly been problems integrating and some unique criminal problems, including human trafficing, tribally-affilated gangs, and even membership and support for the terrorist group al Shabab. But there’s no evidence I can find that, overall, the Somali diaspora in Minnesota is generally problematic.

As best I can tell, essentially all of the Somali immigrants were legal, many under asylum protections. And some 40 percent are native-born, and thus US citizens.