The Somali community in Minneapolis fears Trump and the immigration police

Smells of spicy meat and sweets fill the brightly lit hallways. The Somali music blaring from the speakers is drowned out by an even louder call for afternoon prayers. Construction workers are working on new stalls in the Karmel Mall, the gathering place of the Somali community in Minneapolis. But even on the Islamic day of prayer, the white-tiled corridors are virtually empty and the shutters of at least three-quarters of the stalls are closed.

“Since [de vreemdelingenpolitie] ICE is in the city, things are going terribly,” says Amina Hirsi (39). Wearing a plastic apron and blue hospital gloves, she puts warm flat round loaves of bread in bags. Her bakery is still open. “A year ago I baked six hundred loaves of bread a week, now a maximum of two hundred. Customers stay at home.” The fear in the community is disastrous for her own business, which she opened in 2022 in the city district called ‘Little Mogadishu’.

Do not go outside without a passport

Her sixteen-year-old daughter scrolls through Instagram videos of ICE agents active in various places in the city, filmed by bystanders and activists. “It’s bizarre that I can now only let her go to school with her passport in her pocket, because anyone can be arrested at any time,” says her mother. “Or worse.”

She no longer goes out without proof that she is an American citizen. Hirsi grew up in a refugee camp in Kenya and came to Minnesota in 1991 through a resettlement program. “This is the only country I know: my home.”

In the early 1990s, a swan-clinging effect of Somali refugees from Somalia and elsewhere in the US emerged, due to low rents and unskilled work, especially in the meat processing industry.

Minneapolis has been in the news since an ICE agent shot and killed an American woman who tried to drive away from the immigration police on Wednesday. The northern city has been receiving negative attention from President Donald Trump for some time. He likes to fight political feuds, especially online, with Governor Tim Walz and the far-left Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is of Somali descent. ICE has been active here since the inauguration. Last week, the Trump administration sent another 2,000 agents specific targeting on the more than eighty thousand residents of Somali origin. The vast majority reside legally in the US.

“We are an easy target for the president’s intolerance,” says Mohamed Abdule (30). He works at a school that has been closed due to the unrest and has visited a friend who has a small business in the bazaar as a migration and tax advisor. “We are a relatively small minority in the US, from an African country that has no international weight. And we are Muslims.” Multiple checks on Trump’s hate list.

Zoom in

Not since he accused Haitians of eating pets during the election campaign has Trump made such outright racist comments about a migrant group. He has called Somali Americans “trash.” He recently described Somalia as “one of the most corrupt, evil, violent countries.” People who came from there to the United States “hate our country, they rob us.” A reference to a recent fraud scandal in Minnesota, in which a relatively large number of people from the Somali community were convicted. As far as he is concerned, they lose their citizenship.

I read the constitution when I became naturalized. What is happening now goes against that in many ways

“It is very painful to be portrayed like this because of a few bad apples,” says Hirsi. Even more painful: she voted for Trump in 2024, she admits. A friend who is listening is shocked: “Not! You?”

Hirsi: “I thought he would be good for the economy, and I agree with him on many points, such as shit with the toilets.” In Minnesota, children are allowed to go to the bathroom at school where they feel most at home in terms of gender identity. She is also in favor of deporting people who are not legally in the country. “But I never thought the raids would go this far. Now my business is dead and my neighbors are in danger.”

Zoom in

Right-wing YouTube influencer

Somali Americans should not fear ICE because they should not be deported. But citizens are also harassed, intimidated and sometimes arrested.

“I read the constitution when I became naturalized,” says Warsame (34), a software designer who moonlights as an Uber driver because of the bad economy. “What is happening now goes against that in many ways. Our families have fled here to live in a free country. What remains of that if a criminal president can do whatever he wants? If officers walk through the streets in masks and cannot be held responsible for their actions?” Warsame does not want his surname in the newspaper because of the unsafe situation []. “I have lost eight kilos in recent months due to the stress. And now they are even shooting white women.”

It is not only the men and women in uniform that pose a danger. Recently, a right-wing YouTube influencer toured Somali daycare centers and said the absence of children there proved fraud. His video is said to have been viewed 116 million times on X.

Since that video, several Somalis who do not want their names in the newspaper say, they also feel they are being watched with a side-eye by other Americans and occasionally harassed. independently of each other that a man with a gun was walking around the building recently.

At some point, ICE will move on to another city, thinks school employee Abdule: “But the damage to society and the economy is permanent. Not just for our community.”

Give a gift





Part





Email the editor

The journalistic principles of NRC