A Somali American living in Minnesota who voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election condemned the president’s latest xenophobic attacks against his people as federal authorities plan to launch a targeted immigration enforcement operation in his state.
“I’ve been a Republican for over 25 years. I’m not going to stop being a Republican, and now we are being called ‘garbage.’” said Mohamed Ahmed to CNN’s Whitney Wild.
The president has verbally been on a rejuvenated anti-immigrant tear this week, especially against the Somali community. He unleashed tirades against Somalians on Tuesday and Wednesday, days after his administration halted all asylum decisions following the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C.
“Look how bad their nation is. It’s not even a nation. It’s just people walking around killing each other,” Trump said at Wednesday’s Oval Office press conference. “These Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country. They have destroyed Minnesota.”
Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images
While the suspect in the shooting was from Afghanistan, the incident seemed to fuel Trump’s verbal barrage against immigrants, specifically those from Somalia, saying, “they contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country.”
Minnesota is home to the largest Somali American population in the U.S., with about 84,000 residents living in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, according to PBS News. Abdikadir Bashir, the executive director of the Center for African Immigrants and Refugees Organization (CAIRO), told HuffPost that the recent federal law enforcement surge has sparked fears amongst the community.
“We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way, if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said during a pointed attack against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia.
“I got five children. My children are not garbage,” responded Ahmed, the Somali American Republican and Minnesota resident, to Trump. “We campaigned for you… We have hope in you. We see hope in you. Please differentiate between good, bad and evil.”
