Girls stroll down a avenue within the predominantly Somali neighborhood of Cedar-Riverside in Minneapolis in 2022. The Twin Cities is a hub for Somalis within the U.S.
Jessie Wardarski/AP
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Jessie Wardarski/AP
Minnesota boasts the biggest inhabitants of Somalis within the U.S. — a group that is just lately confronted assaults from President Trump.
On Tuesday, Trump referred to as Somali immigrants “garbage” and mentioned he wished to ship them “back to where they came from.” He continued on Wednesday, saying, “they’ve destroyed our country and all they do is complain, complain, complain.”
The tirade got here lower than two weeks after Trump threatened to strip momentary authorized protections from Somali migrants residing in Minnesota.
Trump and different conservatives have additionally just lately seized on legal investigations and information experiences of fraud in Minnesota’s social companies system — a few of which was allegedly dedicated by Somalis — to disparage your complete group.
Now, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to goal Minnesota and its Somali inhabitants in an upcoming immigration enforcement operation, The Related Press and different shops reported this week.
Almost 80,000 individuals of Somali descent at present dwell in Minnesota, roughly 78% of whom reside within the Twin Cities, in response to the St. Paul-based group Wilder Analysis.
But it surely did not start with the Twin Cities. Somewhat, a few of the first Somali immigrants to enter the U.S. within the late Nineteen Nineties got here to a city referred to as Marshall, about 150 miles west of Minneapolis, in response to Minnesota writer Ahmed Ismail Yusuf, who wrote the guide Somalis in Minnesota.
Somalia on the time was gripped by a civil struggle that brought about lots of of 1000’s of individuals to flee the nation positioned within the Horn of Africa, and a few of those that got here to the U.S. discovered work at a Marshall meat-packing plant. As phrase acquired out about work alternatives in Marshall, different Somali refugees arrived within the area and acquired jobs within the hospitality trade, as taxi drivers and extra, Yusuf mentioned, forming a large Somali group in and across the Twin Cities.
“Those people who were hired, they brought their families. And when they brought their families with them, their families of course brought their children with them,” he mentioned.
The Somali refugees who settled in Minneapolis and St. Paul had been additionally attracted by the truth that Minnesota was recognized for martisoor, which interprets to “hospitality” in Somali. Yusuf mentioned the state’s “liberal attitude and social behavior” mirrored the immigrants’ personal values.
For some Somali refugees, the transition to residing in Minnesota hasn’t been fully easy. Some non secular Somalis have confronted boundaries in practising their Islamic religion, which may contain praying a number of occasions per day and the carrying of a hijab for Muslim girls, in response to the Minnesota Historic Society.
The society mentioned the Somali inhabitants has additionally struggled to beat its affiliation with Islamic extremism, after the group turned a recruiting goal for ISIS over a decade in the past.
Nonetheless, Yusuf mentioned the Somali inhabitants has continued to develop in Minnesota and discover methods to offer again. “Right now, wherever you go, still we’re serving the people, we are serving the community, we are serving the state,” he mentioned.
Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who fled Somalia as a baby and got here to the U.S. as a refugee, in 2018 turned the primary Somali American elected to Congress.
Trump mentioned on Wednesday that Omar “shouldn’t be allowed to be a congresswoman, and I’m sure people are looking at that. And she should be thrown the hell out of our country.”
Omar mentioned in a Tuesday social media put up in response to Trump’s earlier feedback: “His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.”
She was one in every of 4 congresswomen who Trump mentioned in a 2019 tweet ought to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” At a rally shortly after his tweet about Omar, Trump paused whereas some members of the gang chanted: “Send her back.”
Yusuf mentioned the Somali group is now “a bit under siege” by the Trump administration, however he famous that it additionally has the help of metropolis leaders within the Twin Cities, together with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter.
“We are dealing with this,” Yusuf mentioned, “but we are not dealing with it alone.”
