President Trump tells Minnesota to ‘fight back’ against Somali immigrants

President Donald Trump posted a new fulmination against Somali immigrants on his social media platform Thursday, using violent rhetoric.

“The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State. The people of Minnesota must fight back,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

He told Minnesotans the federal government was prepared to “come to your rescue,” calling on Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to “immediately ask for Federal help — and leave the rest to us!”

Walz addressed the post in a fundraising email from Small Town PAC, calling it an “unhinged social media tirade” meant to distract from high prices and the war with Iran.

“To our Somali neighbors: You are valued. You belong here. And we’re going to stand with you,” Walz wrote.

Trump called Walz, without evidence, “an incompetent thief.” Walz released his tax returns during his two runs for governor and run for vice president, and they showed he has few assets outside public employee pensions. Trump’s personal wealth, by contrast, has ballooned since becoming president.

Trump’s post echoes his speech to supporters on Jan. 6 before they violently stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. He told them: “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Trump’s missive comes amid a spate of criminal cases involving Somali American residents: the ongoing fraud crisis in safety-net programs that has led to scores of convictions of Somali Americans, a string of shootings in the Twin Cities suburbs connected to gangs of Somali American youth, and, on Wednesday, the announcement of federal charges against a Somali American teenager, who is alleged to have plotted a terrorist attack on the Mall of America.

Somali Americans have faced hostility from the president since his first-term ban on immigrants from majority-Muslim countries, but it has intensified over the past year. At a cabinet meeting in December, Trump called Somalis “garbage” and said he wants them to “go back to where they came from.” More than 80% of Somali Minnesotans are American citizens and roughly 40% were born here.

Trump, citing fraud, launched the incursion of some 3,000 federal immigration agents to Minnesota that led to the killing of two Americans.