Somali gangs are terrorising: Trump ends Somalis' protected status in US' Minnesota

US President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that he was immediately ending temporary deportation protections for Somalis living in Minnesota, accelerating the termination of a program first launched in 1991 under President George HW Bush.

Trump claimed on Truth Social that “Somali gangs are terrorising” Minnesota and alleged that “billions of dollars are missing,” offering no evidence to support the accusations. He declared that he was ending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Somalis in the state “effective immediately.”

He also described Minnesota as a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” under Democratic Governor Tim Walz, echoing unverified media reports circulated by some Republican lawmakers linking Al-Shabaab to fraud schemes in the state.

Walz pushed back on X, saying the President was “broadly targeting an entire community” to divert attention from other issues.

However, according to the Congressional Research Service, only 705 Somali-born individuals nationwide currently hold Temporary Protected Status.

The vast majority of Somali-origin residents in Minnesota are US citizens, including Representative Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia, fled the civil war as a child, lived in a Kenyan refugee camp, and later settled in Minneapolis. She now represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives.

The TPS program for Somalis began in September 1991 to protect eligible foreign-born individuals who could not safely return home due to conflict or disasters. Seventeen countries currently hold the TPS designation. While the Trump administration has moved to end several designations, including for Venezuela and Nicaragua, the Biden administration had extended TPS for Somalis through March 17, 2026.

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minnesota, criticised Trump’s move, saying the affected Somalis were legal migrants who had followed the law. He warned that the decision could tear families apart.

Abshir Omar, a political strategist who endorsed Trump in the 2024 presidential race, said he expected the decision to face legal challenges. He also cautioned that the move could strain long-term economic and strategic ties with Somalia, which recently offered the US exclusive control of air bases and ports and signalled interest in partnering with American firms to explore its oil reserves.

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