President Donald Trump ended his Cabinet meeting on Tuesday by unleashing criticism on Somali immigrants, whom he described as “garbage,” saying he doesn’t want them in the United States.
“You know, our country’s at a tipping point. We could go bad. We’re at a tipping point. I don’t know if people mind me saying that, but I’m saying it,” Trump said. “We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
He ascribed the same description to Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali American who represents Minnesota, who replied on social media that Trump’s “obsession with me is creepy.”
“I hope he gets the help he desperately needs,” she added.
Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman makes a phone call in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood amid reports of a planned federal operation targeting Somali immigrants, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., Dec. 2, 2025.
Tim Evans/Reuters
Trump’s attacks on the American Somali community come as a major contrast to last year when he was campaigning for reelection and gained support from that voting bloc.
Trump was asked about why the Minnesota Somali community should support him during an interview with podcast host Liz Collin in July 2024.
“Because they want safety, they want security … they want security just like everybody else,” he said in the interview, which took place prior to a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, which also has a sizable Somali population.
Salman Fiqy, a Somali American in Minnesota who emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal supporters within the community, spoke to the Sahan Journal in July 2024, about how he squared Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, including the 2017 “Muslim ban.”
“He rubbed us the wrong way,” Fiqy said in 2024, referring to Trump’s statements on Somali refugees at the time. “But I think the majority realize it was a political statement to rally his base.”
The president’s rebuke on the Somalian community, specifically those in Minnesota, came amid a back-and-forth between the chief executive and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who Trump called on to resign amid a reported welfare “scandal.”
The New York Times published an investigation last week on fraud allegedly perpetrated by Somali immigrants against Minnesota’s social services system. The Times’ account detailed law enforcement officials’ claims that over the past five years, “fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora.”
Critics reportedly said that some of that alleged fraud continued because state officials under Walz didn’t want to alienate the Somali population.
In response to The New York Times’ investigation, Walz said in a social media post Tuesday that he welcomes “support in investigating and prosecuting crime. But pulling a PR stunt and indiscriminately targeting immigrants is not a real solution to a problem.”
Trump has seized on the ballooning controversy in recent days as he also linked Omar, a longtime political foe, to the welfare dissension — something he’s also repeated in recent weeks.
Most Somalis initially arrived in the U.S. as refugees following the civil war in the 1990s with over 260,000 people of Somali decent living across the country, according to the U.S. census.
Approximately 73% of Somali Immigrants are naturalized citizens, according to the census.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told reporters that the city is home to more than 80,000 Somali immigrants and most are U.S. citizens.
He pushed back against the administration’s rhetoric Tuesday afternoon and said the city would stand by the Somali community.
“It will be a practical inevitability that when people are arrested by federal immigration agents, they’re going to get the wrong people. They’re going to make mistakes,” he said. “They’re going to screw it up so badly that they’re not just violating habeas corpus, but they are taking away the rights of American citizens.”
Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric has also increased following the alleged shooting last week of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan national. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, was charged on Tuesday with murder.
Tom Homan, the federal border czar, said on Tuesday that there will be an “increase” in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Minnesota, but declined to give any insight into when that may happen.
President Donald Trump stands up to depart following a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025, in Washington.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
“Yes, there’s going to be an increase of activity up there,” Homan told FOX News. “We’re going to hold people accountable. We are going to enforce the laws of this country without apology.”
Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman criticized the Trump administration for “othering” a population.
“Our Somali American neighbors — the vast majority of them U.S. citizens — deserve to feel safe in their own country,” he said on social media. “Why are some ‘othering’ Americans? Have we learned nothing?”
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin and Christine Cordero contributed to this report.