Trump accused of trying to start a ‘race war’ with threats to Somali communities in Minnesota

Donald Trump has been accused of invoking a call to violence against Somali immigrants he claims have “taken over” the state of Minnesota, his latest invective against a Somali population he has previously labeled “garbage” who “come from hell.”

“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 Thursday night on Truth Social.

He told Minnesotans that the federal government was prepared to “come to your rescue” and pushed Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to “immediately ask for Federal help — and leave the rest to us!”

In his own statement, Walz called the president’s comments “deranged” while critics accused the president of trying to ignite a “race war” amid declining support in the polls and dim prospects of Republican victories in midterm elections this fall.

“The president’s deranged social media posts can’t distract from the fact that he’s losing a war and driving up costs,” Walz said. “He’s lashing out at blue states because he can’t land a punch on America’s actual enemies.”

Trump’s post is “blatant racism and an implicit call for violence against an entire community,” according to the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group.

“President Trump is placing a target on the backs of Somali Americans,” the chapter’s executive director Jaylani Hussein said. “His words are not simply political rhetoric. They are a dangerous invitation to hatred and potentially violence.

Somali Americans “are not outsiders,” Hussein added. “They are Minnesotans. They deserve the same safety, dignity, and constitutional protections as every other American.”

Trump is “deliberately inciting race hatred,” according to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, a research and advocacy group.

The president’s post follows several shooting incidents that law enforcement officials have indicated involved Somali gangs. Federal charges were also filed this week against a Somali American man who was accused of plotting a terror attack at the Mall of America.

“You have been robbed, and abandoned by your State Government,” Trump wrote in his post.

“Your Governor is an incompetent thief who doesn't want to get involved. He just wants to get out of town with as much as he can steal, and then, lead a quiet life,” he added. “The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back!”

Minnesota Republican Rep. Tom Emmer also appeared on Fox Business to label Somali immigrants “enemy combatants.”

Trump — who has routinely used derogatory and inflammatory language to describe Minnesota’s Somali population and Somali Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar — baselessly accused Somali immigrants of “roving the streets looking for ‘prey’” last year as his administration prepared to deploy federal immigration officers into the state.

The Minneapolis-St.Paul area is home to roughly 80,000 people of Somali ancestry, the vast majority of whom are legal residents or American citizens. But the president — seizing on a series of fraud cases involving government programs where most of the defendants have roots in Somalia — surged officers into the state as part of his nationwide effort to deport millions of people.

In a statement announcing “Operation PARRIS” to target Somali refugees in the state, Homeland Security officials said Minnesota is “ground zero for the war on fraud.”

A federal judge appointed by the president later found “compelling and troubling evidence” that immigration officers are racially profiling immigrants and legal residents alike in violation of their constitutional rights.

A lawsuit from a group of Minnesota residents, including U.S. citizens, accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents of illegally targeting Somali and Latino communities with unconstitutional stops based solely on their race and ethnicity.

In March, Minnesota District Judge John Tostrud stopped just short of blocking Homeland Security officials from implementing those policies, largely because the Trump administration had already announced a drawdown in the state by then.

Minneapolis City Council member Jamal Osman, who was born in Somalia and was a refugee in Kenya before coming to the U.S. as a teenager, said in a statement addressed to Trump that “Somali Minnesotans are your constituents, too.”

“Your responsibility to protect them is no different from your responsibility to protect any other American,” he added. “When a president tells people to ‘fight back’ while singling out an entire community, those words carry consequences.”

In August, a federal judge allowed the Trump administration to terminate Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status designation, joining a wave of efforts by Homeland Security to deport tens of thousands of immigrants who fled their home countries in the wake of disaster and violence.

Despite the “undisguised racial animus” fueling the government’s move to cancel TPS for Somalia, the court argued it was bound by the Supreme Court’s recent decision that opened the door for the administration to terminate humanitarian protections.

“This decision delivers a tremendous blow to the safety of Somali TPS communities all across the nation, opening the door to deportation and violence at the hands of federal agents,” plaintiffs in the case said in a statement at the time. “We are deeply dismayed at the devastation that will be left in the wake of this ruling but will not stop in our fight to protect the rights of Somali people.”