President Donald Trump escalated his attacks on Somali Americans and Muslims on Thursday, portraying Minnesota’s Somali community as a threat and branding Muslim U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed a radical extremist.
“The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State. The people of Minnesota must fight back,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
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Trump also urged Minnesota authorities to seek federal intervention.
Civil rights advocates have condemned the Republican president’s language toward minorities and immigrants. Trump has previously referred to Somalis as “garbage.”
He has repeatedly cited a Minnesota scandal dating to 2020, when dozens of people were accused of stealing millions of dollars from a state-run, federally funded child nutrition program. Many of those charged were Somali Americans.
In May, Aimee Bock, who is not a Somali immigrant and headed the Minnesota nonprofit at the center of the scandal, received a 41-year prison sentence after being convicted last year as the scheme’s ringleader.
Trump has pointed to the fraud case to justify an aggressive federal campaign in the Democratic-led state to arrest and deport immigrants earlier this year, as well as efforts to limit access to social service programs, including Medicare and childcare.
Rights organizations say Trump has used individual fraud cases to justify collectively targeting immigrant communities. They have also criticized his record on fraud, pointing to pardons he granted to people convicted of fraud-related offenses.
“Somali Minnesotans are our neighbors. They are part of Minnesota. And the Minnesota I know and love is so much better than this bigotry,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in response to Trump’s post.
In a separate post late Wednesday, Trump called El-Sayed, a Muslim and the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, a “RADICAL Extremist” and “Terrorist Sympathizer.” He also endorsed Republican candidate Mike Rogers.
Democrats said Trump was using inflammatory language to divert attention from the effects of his policies as voters approach the November U.S. midterm elections. “He thinks he can use my name and my faith to distract us from the suffering his policies are inflicting on us at the pump, at the grocery store, and at the doctor’s office,” El-Sayed, who has also faced anti-Muslim attacks from other Republicans, said on Thursday.
The Michigan Democratic Party and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer described Trump’s remarks as desperate and racist.
Trump has repeatedly used minority groups as targets in his rhetoric. He previously spread false claims that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio town were eating pets and has used the word “Palestinian” as an insult.
Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Donna Bryson and Cynthia Osterman
