Trump’s ‘garbage’ comments threaten GOP inroads in Minnesota Somali community

Last year, Donald Trump wanted people like Salman Fiqy on his side.

Fiqy, of Burnsville, said Trump’s campaign reached out to ask him to help get members of Minnesota’s Somali community to publicly endorse his second bid for president. After months of organizing and outreach, Fiqy stood at a podium with more than a dozen people who proclaimed themselves as Somalis for Trump.

Now, he’s rethinking his support for the president and all Republicans in Minnesota after days of attacks that culminated in Trump calling Somalis “garbage.”

“Trump turned against us ... and I cannot participate in bashing my own community,” said Fiqy, who immigrated to Minnesota from Somalia in 2009 and became a U.S. citizen in 2018.

“Minnesota GOP didn’t come and support or show any sympathy or didn’t show any reassurance to Somalis in Minnesota,” Fiqy added. “What is the point of affiliating with them?”

Trump’s comments threaten to unravel gains that Minnesota Republicans have made in the Somali community, which numbers about 80,000. Most are naturalized or U.S.-born citizens. The GOP opened a Somali community center in Minneapolis and sponsored a dinner with Somali supporters in 2022. In last year’s presidential election, some predominantly Somali precincts near downtown Minneapolis shifted to the right, though former Vice President Kamala Harris still won majorities.

The president’s attacks appeared to be sparked by a report from a conservative outlet, citing little evidence, that the terrorist organization al-Shabab had received funds fraudulently obtained from state government programs.

Trump has ramped up attacks on Somali Minnesotans since the report’s publication and pledged to revoke Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of members of the community. The Trump administration is reportedly planning to target undocumented members of the Twin Cities’ Somali community with immigration raids.

“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country,” Trump said of Somali immigrants during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.

David Hann led efforts to increase outreach to the Somali community when he was chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota. In 2022, he oversaw the opening of the GOP’s Somali community center in Minneapolis as the party tried to appeal to voters in the metro.

“We tried to go into the city and meet with those folks. And there are many, many issues that they share with Republicans as opposed to Democrats, philosophically,” Hann said of the Somali community. “We made a lot of friends, and I think we also saw increased support for Republicans.”

While he commended Trump for enforcing federal immigration laws, Hann said, “I don’t think it’s fair to castigate an entire group of people, no matter who they are, for the crimes of some of them.”

Mohamed said while Somali Minnesotans overwhelmingly vote for DFL candidates, issues like affordability and frustration over the war in Gaza drove some members of the community to the right — like members of many communities across the country.

Last year’s election, Mohamed said, was unique, but now people are seeing “who the Republican Party is.”

She said Somali Minnesotans are unlikely to feel welcome “in a party that wants to call them ‘garbage’ and wants to kick them out of this country.”

Scott Jensen, who won the party’s nomination for governor in 2022 and is running again, met with Somali community members and business owners on Lake Street earlier this week — before Trump’s Cabinet meeting comments.

In an interview Wednesday, Jensen said he’s always tried to build relationships with immigrant communities. He said he respects them and will continue to cultivate goodwill. But he said it’s also important to acknowledge the massive amount of money lost to fraud in Minnesota in recent years.

Businessman Kendall Qualls, another Republican running for governor, struck a different tone. In a statement Wednesday, he claimed that many Somali Americans “remain loyal to Somalia while rejecting the United States’ generosity and taking advantage of the privileges they have here.”

“There are millions of immigrants who dream of the opportunity to call themselves American citizens. Many of those immigrants make America a greater and stronger nation. But quite frankly, we’re not seeing that from a large majority of the Somali community in Minnesota,” Qualls said.

Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said she was “grateful that President Trump is addressing the fraud issues.”

“There is no community that is uniformly bad or uniformly good,” said Demuth, who is also running for governor and seeking Trump’s endorsement. “Bad actors in any community, including the Somali community in this case, need to be dealt with. We’ve seen members of the Somali community calling out fraud and calling for prosecutions of the perpetrators, and we need to listen to them.”

Another governor candidate, Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove, declined to comment.

“President Trump has consistently voiced support for legal immigration and for families who work hard and contribute to this country,” he said.

Asked if Trump’s comments will affect Minnesota Republicans’ efforts to win over Somali voters, Deri said, “Somali voters are thoughtful and judge leaders by their full record, not one comment.”

“One moment of rhetoric,” he said, “will not define our long-term political relationships.”

Alex Plechash, chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, said the party continues to court voters in the state’s Somali American community. While several dozen people of East African descent have been charged with defrauding the state’s welfare programs, Plechash said “that doesn’t represent the Somali community in general.”

“There’s a lot of hardworking, good people in the Somali community,” he said.

Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville, served as a director of outreach in the Minnesota Republican Party ahead of the 2024 elections and worked to build relationships in the Somali community.

Though he doesn’t agree with Trump’s remarks this week, he also said he won’t condemn them. Instead, he thinks both sides could have done a better job at figuring out how to work together to find a solution to counter the widespread fraud in the state.

“One of the major contributing factors to us getting to where we’re at has been how the Somali community has conducted itself,” Hudson said.

Hudson says he can’t blame Somali Republicans like Fiqy for feeling abandoned by Republicans and admits it will be hard to court them in future elections.

“I don’t give up on the possibility of re-establishing those relationships in the future,” he said.