Somalis in Minnesota say ICE agents already targeting their community

Some of Minnesota’s Somali community said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents already begun enforcement operations in the state.

Minneapolis Councilman Jamal Osman, who is of Somali descent, told ABC News in an interview last Wednesday that locations for English as a second language courses, places of worship and homes have been targeted.

The deployment of ICE in Minnesota comes at a time after President Donald Trump brought up Minnesota’s large Somali community in last Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, saying he did not want those from the northeast African country in America because “they contribute nothing.”

“This is not the America that I imagine,” Osman said. “What we’re seeing is not just politics; it’s dangerous.”

The councilman said those with social security numbers and work permits, and those waiting for asylum interviews have been targeted, as well as U.S. citizens. Osman said that people are afraid to leave their houses, and he is advising those of Somali descent to carry passports everywhere they go.

“[I] never knew there will be a day that you have to show your legal document in the United States [because you look Somali],” Osman said to ABC News on Wednesday. “But the reality is people are not leaving home without their passport.”

ICE said on Thursday that agents had arrested 12 people in its Minnesota enforcement operation, the Associated Press reported. Of those, six are Mexican nationals, five are from Somalia and one is from El Salvador, according to the news gathering service.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for an update on the number of people arrested.

Amiin Harun, an immigration attorney of Somali descent in Minneapolis, told ABC News in an interview on Wednesday that the vast majority of Somalis living in Minnesota are citizens, permanent residents or documented asylum seekers.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told ABC News on Wednesday that the agency enforces the laws of the nation.

“What makes someone a target of ICE is not their race or ethnicity, but the fact that they are in the country illegally,” McLaughlin said in her statement. “We do not discuss future or potential operations.”

McLaughlin did not reply to ABC News’ question about whether ICE enforcement had already launched in Minnesota.

Harun told ABC News on Wednesday that one of his clients who has permanent status to be in the U.S. was visited by ICE agents at her home on Tuesday. The attorney said the agents occupied her residence for three hours before she was able to provide proof of her legal status, causing her much anxiety and fear.

“I don’t want them in our country; I’ll be honest with you. Somebody will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks,” Trump said of Somali immigrants in last Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting. “And we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”

Osman appeared saddened when ABC News asked his thoughts on the president’s remarks about his community.

“The fear of having the entire nation just look and see us, and look at us as garbage and less human,” the councilman said. “No human is a garbage.”

Trump’s comments came a day before House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced in a statement obtained by ABC News on Wednesday that the committee has started an investigation into claims of fraud that center on Minnesota’s Somali community.

Prior to Trump’s Cabinet meeting comments, a Nov. 30 New York Times investigation detailed claims from law enforcement that over the past five years, “fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora, as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.”

Osman conceded that there very well could have been fraud taking place with certain individuals.

“There is a process of justice,” Osman told ABC News on Wednesday. “There’s that process, but we should not be having the whole entire community blamed.”

Estimates of the theft have been estimated at $300 million by prosecutors, according to the AP. The number of defendants, whose cases are still being processed, is approximately 78, the AP reported.

“There are over 80,000 people in Minnesota who are Somalis,” Minnesota State Sen. Zaynab Mohamed told ABC News in an interview on Friday. “So we’re talking about few people who have committed crimes.”

Comer — a Republican — has sent letters to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison seeking documents, communications and records as part of the investigation, the House Oversight Committee said in a statement last week.

“The Committee has serious concerns about how you as the Governor, and the Democrat-controlled administration, allowed millions of dollars to be stolen,” Comer wrote to Walz, according to the House Oversight Committee’s Wednesday statement.

Walz said in a press conference on Thursday that his office is working to bring those involved in fraud in Minnesota to justice, but said it can be done without generalizations about a whole group of people.

“You can do that without being racist and vile and putting people at risk,” Walz said at a Thursday news conference. “You can do that without canceling programs that improve people’s lives because a few people took advantage of the system.”

Attorney General Keith Ellison did not mince words when referring to Trump and ICE’s deployment in Minnesota.

“Donald Trump’s disgraceful attacks on Minnesota’s Somali community are injecting more of his poisonous racism into our beloved home state,” Ellison said in an X post on Tuesday. “Hearing him single out our people based solely on their race and country of origin is downright disgusting.”

Minnesota has the largest Somali community in the U.S. with roughly 87,000 residents, according to the AP. Most have been coming since the 1990s to escape a protracted civil war in Somalia.

During his Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump said that Somali immigrants are highly dependent on the U.S. social safety net and add little.

“We are your doctors, your nurses,” Mohamed said to ABC News in an interview on Friday. “We are the people who are taking care of your parents while you go to work.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a Thursday press conference that the Somali community is part of the “fabric” of Minneapolis and makes the city a “better place”.

“We have received reports about a number of scattered incidents in which federal agents were involved in some form of activity. In many cases, those activities are largely built around terrorizing people,” Frey said at a news conference on Thursday.

Trump said in a Truth Social post last month that he would end Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota, a lawful safeguard from deportation for immigrants from certain countries experiencing hardship. Harun told ABC News on Wednesday that roughly 705 Somalis nationwide are covered by TPS.

“This country has a history of different ethnic groups being targeted at different times — whether it’s the Italians, the Irish, the Japanese, the Native Americans, African Americans. This is just what’s happening to the Somali community,” Harun said to ABC News. “I would just urge all of us to stand together and to defend. When one of us is attacked, we’re all being attacked.”

ABC News’ Justin Fishel, Hannah Demissie, Lauren Peller, Isabella Murray, Alexandra Fine, Oren Oppenheim and Michael Pappano contributed to this report.