Opinion | Trump’s anti-Somali rhetoric is repugnant. Minnesota leaders’ silence is worse.

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A few days ago, I watched from my living room window as my daughter and a neighbor pulled a sled through the fresh snow in our backyard. The snow was deep, so they carved a narrow trail step by step, laughing as they went. It was the kind of simple winter joy that makes a place feel like home, a home where our neighbor is white and my daughter is Somali.

Just two years ago, that same patch of land in Rosemount was an empty field. Today, our block of single-family homes reflects the new Minnesota taking shape. There’s an Ethiopian family, a Senegalese family, a Sudanese family, a Latino family and a longtime white Minnesota family.

For generations, Rosemount was a quiet farming community with deep Irish roots, a city of just 2,000 people in 1960. Today, the city’s population has surged to nearly 30,000 and is projected to reach 40,000 by 2030. That kind of explosive growth brings change, and with it new faces and new neighbors.

The city now has two mosques that overflow during Friday prayers. This is who Minnesota is becoming. It’s a complex and beautiful reality. It’s also one that political leaders like House Speaker Lisa Demuth and U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer seem intent on ignoring — or worse, exploiting.

President Donald Trump’s recent fixation on Somali Minnesotans is less about policy and more about distraction. When political winds turned against him, when grocery prices rose, he reached for the oldest tactic in the book: Find a vulnerable community and turn it into a punching bag. He has called Somalis “garbage” and said he doesn’t want us in the country, even though most of us are U.S. citizens.

Unless, of course, you’re the president’s friend.

Since he came back to office, Trump has pardoned or commuted sentences for high-profile fraudsters, even as he stokes outrage about fraud in Minnesota. This from a man found liable for inflating asset values and who settled a $25 million fraud case over Trump University, a man whose foundation was dissolved after allegations of self-dealing.

This is all politics.

Minnesota’s Republican leaders know this, yet few have the courage to say so.

That lack of moral clarity was on full display when PBS NewsHour reporter Fred de Sam Lazaro asked House Speaker Lisa Demuth what her message was to Somali Minnesotans hearing Trump’s rhetoric.

Instead, Demuth retreated to a talking point, responding, “My top message to Gov. [Tim] Walz is end the fraud.”

De Sam Lazaro gave her another chance, reminding her that the question was about her Minnesota residents, the Somali community.

She deflected again. He gave her a third chance.

“You don’t take issue with the president’s rhetoric?” he asked.

“I’m focused on what Minnesota is doing and our lack of leadership here,” Demuth said, apparently unable to see the irony.

Her refusal to even acknowledge Somali Minnesotans reveals more than political cowardice. It shows a huge miscalculation. Demuth and most of her colleagues operate under the outdated assumption that ignoring us carries no political cost, that we are guests in this state.

She is wrong.

Also consider Rep. Tom Emmer. In 2015, when a constituent complained about Somali refugees, he responded, “You don’t get to slam the gate behind you and tell nobody else that they’re welcome.”

A decade later, days after Trump called Somalis “garbage,” Emmer appeared on Fox Business and falsely claimed 80% of crimes in the Twin Cities are committed by Somalis. When asked whether he condemned Trump’s remarks, he walked away.

Courage, it seems, has become negotiable.

In just three short decades, Somalis have become deeply integrated into this state. We’re proud of our heritage and we also love our adopted state, even if we still wonder what possessed the first Somali family to think the frozen tundra of Minnesota was the right place to start a new life. We cheer for the Timberwolves and the Vikings, which, let’s be honest, builds a specific kind of character through shared suffering. We’re obsessed with local and state politics. We’ve moved from the phase of arrival to the phase of permanence, becoming part of Minnesota’s fabric.

My own story reflects this transformation. It began exactly 20 years ago, after my family resettled in St. Paul. At night, the State Capitol glowed in the distance, visible from our kitchen window. I went through Minnesota’s public education system and became one of the first Somali reporters in mainstream newsrooms, including this one.

As I built a career in the media and raised a family, Minnesota changed alongside us. Most of my older siblings and their friends married. Their children started school. Those kids born in the mid-to-late 2000s are now college students, graduates and young professionals. My nephew, the first in our family born in Minnesota, has finished college, launched a business and recently married. My nieces work as nurses in local hospitals.

Our family’s journey is just one story among thousands. Across Minnesota, Somali families have been doing the same, each carrying their own history and hopes into the life they are building here.

Taken together, those individual paths have helped shape the Minnesota we see today. In 2005, Minnesotans of color made up 8% of the population. By the 2020 census, that figure had risen to 25%, a dramatic shift in less than a generation.

Even our small city felt compelled to respond to rising racist rhetoric. Rosemount’s statement was quiet but resolute: “Rosemount is growing and changing, and we’d like to clarify our commitment to protecting and serving all of our residents ... Together, we are Rosemount.”

That’s why, as political voices continue to attack my community, I keep returning to that moment in the snow. My daughter and her white neighbor trudging forward, creating a path neither could have made alone. After they finished playing, the neighbor’s mother called them both inside for hot chocolate, a simple gesture rooted in welcome and belonging.

That is the Minnesota I know. That is the Minnesota worth defending.

My kids and their neighbors are building a Minnesota that includes all of us, one sled trail at a time. The question is whether elected officials like Demuth and Emmer will have the wisdom, the decency, the courage to follow where Minnesota’s children are already leading.