A week into immigration operation, Minnesota Somalis remain on edge but vow resilience
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A week into an immigration operation buttressed by President Donald Trump’s disparagement of Somali immigrants in Minnesota, community members remain scared.
They’re seeing increased ICE presence in their neighborhoods and in community hubs where once felt safe. Visitors coming into Karmel Mall on Minneapolis’ Lake Street are immediately greeted by a sign that says “NO ICE ENTER WITHOUT COURT ORDER.”
The mall is a vibrant cultural center housing hundreds of Somali vendors, usually bustling on the weekends.
But on Sunday morning, the few people there couldn’t help but call it a “ghost city.”
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“It used to be a lot of people, bumper to bumper, a lot of people,” said Ali Mahamud, who is there for breakfast. “Everybody ran away, and everybody is scared, and the business is shut down.”
This all comes after Trump called for a crackdown on Somali people in Minnesota, whom he accused of being responsible for fraud in government programs. Minnesota is home to an estimated 80,000 Somalis, and a majority of them have legal citizenship while hundreds have temporary protected status, according to federal data.
Last week as word of an operation began to circulate, Trump spoke from the White House about people of Somali descent. He called them “garbage” and said they didn’t deserve to remain in the country.
Mahamud, the only customer sitting inside Gobeey Cafe in Karmel Mall on Sunday morning, said Trump ought to think twice about what he says. According to him, Trump’s words are instilling fear in Somali business owners who can’t afford to close shop.
“Some of them have a green card. They lived in the city the last 15, 20 years. I don't know in the end of the month how they're going to pay their bills,” he said. “They have kids, they have a family.”
Now, Mahamud doesn’t go anywhere without his driver’s license and passport ID.
“I’m a U.S. citizen, and I'm still afraid. Because I don’t want to — they just took me and hauling me for couple of days for nothing,” he said.
‘We are hard workers’
About a 10-minute drive away is the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, where many Somali Minnesotans live. A few men sat inside Smart Kitchen and Cafeteria drinking Somali tea.
In the background, a television in the corner was broadcasting news reports about ICE activity in Minnesota.
“We are hard workers, we are citizens. We love the United States as our home,” said Bashir Jimalu, a truck driver who has lived in Minnesota for 17 years.
He said he’s seen ICE agents in the neighborhood. But he hasn’t personally witnessed anyone being detained yet.
Still, Jimalu is scared of discrimination against his community. What’s most concerning to him is Trump pinning fraud scandals involving relatively few people of Somali descent to the Minnesota community as a whole.
The scandals — some years old and many prosecutions deep — have made national headlines in the past few weeks.
“No one is perfect, whether white or brown or black,” Jimalu said. “So if two or four or five or six corrupted, it doesn't mean all of Somalia corrupted.”
In Shuaib Mohamed’s eyes, the stepped-up ICE activity is a waste of government resources. Because most Somali Americans in the state have legal citizenship, Mohamed said the ICE operation has had the effect Trump hoped for.
“Now, the unfortunate thing is that people would have to carry their U.S. passport cards and passports basically just to show them that you can’t just pretty much profile people, and that’s what they’re doing,” Mohamed said. “And their tactics are not working.”
Since ICE activity has ramped up in the Twin Cities, Mohamed said local community organizations are mobilizing to educate Somali Minnesotans on their rights if they are confronted by federal agents.
Border czar defends steps
On a Sunday morning CNN show, White House border czar Tom Homan said ICE is focusing on Minnesota because there is “a large illegal Somali community.”
“We’re going to do the same thing in the Twin Cities we’ve done across the nation. We’re going to focus on those illegal alien public safety threats in these cities,” said Homan.
He argued ICE actions would be safer and more secure if Minneapolis and St. Paul didn’t have ordinances preventing immigration enforcement cooperation by local police.
“But because you’re a sanctuary city, we’ve got to send more resources there to flood the zone,” Homan said. “Because it takes a whole team to find somebody in the community, where it would take one agent to arrest one bad guy in a county jail.”
Federal authorities say they’ve arrested 19 people from several countries through the ICE operation in Minnesota. It’s not clear how long the ICE actions will last or what the scope will be in the coming weeks.
No matter what, Mohamed of St. Paul said the Minnesota community will continue to stand with their Somali American neighbors during these times.
He and many Somali Minnesotans feel supported by local politicians and volunteers who are watching and documenting incidents. He hopes that support will continue for as long as ICE has a presence in Minnesota.
“As a Somali American, I’m going to stand up for every person within my community, whether they’re Asian, whether they’re Hispanic, whether they’re white, whether they’re Black and anything that they face,” he said.
