{"id":307866,"date":"2025-11-22T22:42:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T22:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/307866\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T22:42:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T22:42:21","slug":"trumps-plan-to-end-protections-for-somalis-in-minnesota-sparks-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/307866\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s plan to end protections for Somalis in Minnesota sparks fear"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s pledge to terminate temporary legal protections<\/a> for Somalis living in Minnesota is triggering fear in the state\u2019s deeply-rooted immigrant community, along with doubts about whether the White House has the legal authority to enact the directive as described.<\/p>\n

In a Truth Social post<\/a> late Friday, Trump said he would \u201cimmediately\u201d strip Somali residents in Minnesota of Temporary Protected Status, a legal safeguard against deportation for immigrants from certain countries. <\/p>\n

The announcement drew immediate pushback from some state leaders and immigration experts, who characterized Trump\u2019s declaration as a legally dubious effort to sow fear and suspicion toward Minnesota\u2019s Somali community<\/a>, the largest in the nation. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no legal mechanism that allows the president to terminate protected status for a particular community or state that he has beef with,\u201d said Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Trump doing what he always does: demagoguing immigrants without justification or evidence and using that demagoguery in an attempt to take away important life-saving protections,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration has until mid-January to revoke the legal protection for Somalis nationally. But that move would affect only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of Somalis living in Minnesota. A report produced for Congress in August put the number of Somalis covered by TPS at just 705 nationwide.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI am a citizen and so are (the) majority of Somalis in America,\u201d Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Somali, said in a social media post Friday. \u201cGood luck celebrating a policy change that really doesn\u2019t have much impact on the Somalis you love to hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, advocates warned the move could inflame hate against a community at a time of rising Islamophobia. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not just a bureaucratic change,\u201d said Jaylani Hussein, president of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. \u201cIt is a political attack on the Somali and Muslim community driven by Islamophobic and hateful rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his social media post, Trump claimed, without offering evidence, that Somali gangs had targeted Minnesota residents and referred to the state as a \u201chub of fraudulent money laundering activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors have in recent weeks brought charges against dozens of people in a social-services fraud scheme. Some of the defendants hail from Somalia. \u201cAccountability is coming,\u201d Minnesota Republican Rep. Tom Emmer wrote in response to that story. <\/p>\n

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has noted that Minnesota consistently ranks among the safest states in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not surprising that the President has chosen to broadly target an entire community,\u201d Walz said Friday. \u201cThis is what he does to change the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to Trump\u2019s announcement, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison his office was \u201cexploring all of our options,\u201d adding that Trump \u201ccannot terminate TPS for just one state or on a bigoted whim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomali folks came to Minnesota fleeing conflict, instability and famine, and they have become an integral part of our state, our culture and our community,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

The protection has been extended 27 times for Somalians since 1991, with U.S. authorities determining that it was unsafe for people already in the United States to return there.<\/p>\n

Somalia for decades has been regarded as one of the world\u2019s most dangerous countries. People have been fleeing ever since leader Siad Barre was removed in 1991 by clan-based militias and civil war erupted. The chaos later led to the rise of the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militant group, which still holds parts of the country and carries out deadly attacks in the capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere against the fragile federal government.<\/p>\n

Community advocates note that the Somali diaspora in Minnesota has helped to revitalize downtown corridors<\/a> in Minneapolis and plays a prominent role in the state\u2019s politics. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is that the Somali community is beloved and long-woven into the fabric of many neighborhoods and communities in Minnesota,\u201d said Altman. \u201cDestabilizing families and communities makes all of us less safe and not more.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of a broader push to adopt hardline immigration policies, the Trump administration has moved to withdraw various protections<\/a> that had allowed immigrants to remain in the United States and work legally.<\/p>\n

That included ending TPS for 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians who were granted protection<\/a> under President Joe Biden. The Trump administration has also sought to limit protections previously extended to migrants from Cuba and Syria, among other countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump\u2019s pledge to terminate temporary legal protections for Somalis living in Minnesota is triggering fear in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,12,793,102519,790,3319,159393,6429,6661,3,111,3766,42786,159394,8631,8638,795,21,792,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-307866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-ilhan-omar","tag-immigration","tag-joe-biden","tag-keith-ellison","tag-minnesota","tag-mn-state-wire","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-somalia-government","tag-thomas-emmer","tag-tim-walz","tag-u-s-democratic-party","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}