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President Donald Trump called a bloc of Somali immigrants in Minnesota who rely too much on the American welfare state “trash,” while ICE reportedly plans to step up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities.
In his ninth Cabinet meeting of 2025 on Tuesday, Trump said the Somalis have made a mess of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and characterized Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., as his political figure.
His comments come as a New York Times report claimed that ICE is prepared to launch an “intensive immigration enforcement operation” targeting the Twin Cities. The newspaper claimed it would target the Somali population, but a senior DHS official told Fox News Digital that the agency never prosecutes based on race, only immigration status.
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President Donald Trump, left; Representative Ilhan A. Omar, right. (Pete Marovich/Getty Images; Tom Williams/Getty Images)
At the White House, Trump lashed out at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz over a growing scandal in St. Paul over what the Times said were “several fraud schemes that proliferated in parts of Minnesota's Somali community.”
According to the report, several people allegedly created companies that billed the state for millions in fraudulent payments.
“Walz is a wildly incompetent man; something is wrong with him,” Trump said of the Box Butte, Nebraska native, who was also Kamala Harris' 2024 running mate.
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Walz defended himself to The New York Times, saying that the programs under scrutiny “are created to transfer money to people.”
“Programs are designed to improve people's lives, and in many cases, criminals find the loopholes,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump said that Somalia “is just a country where they go around killing each other.”
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“Ilhan Omar is trash, his friends are trash,” he said.
“When they come from hell and complain and do nothing but complain, we don't want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,” he said.
Trump also revisited allegations that Omar, who is from Mogadishu, allegedly “married his brother” to obtain US citizenship.
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After her loss in the 2016 Democratic primary in the State House that launched her political career, Omar told Minnesota Public Radio that she married Ahmed Hirsi, with whom she has three children, but is also separated from a second man who lives in England.
A conservative blog at the time claimed that Omar was simultaneously married to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, and claimed that the man could also be her brother, but the congresswoman called such claims “absurd and offensive.”
In 2020, Omar married political consultant Tim Mynett and wrote on Instagram that she had gone from “partners in politics to partners in life, what a blessing. Alhamdulillah.”
Of claims that ICE will target Somalis in the Twin Cities, DHS Undersecretary Tricia McLaughlin dismissed such claims:
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“Every day, ICE enforces the nation's laws across the country. What makes someone a target for ICE is not their race or ethnicity, but the fact that they are in the country illegally.”
“We did not discuss future or potential operations,” he said.
In response to Trump, Omar said the president's “obsession with me is creepy.”
“I hope he gets the help he desperately needs,” he said on X.
