Minnesota Immigration Crackdown Impacts Somali Businesses

 The Associated Press published on 18 January 2026 an article titled "Somali Businesses Struggle during the Minneapolis ICE Crackdown" by Sarah Raza.

Minneapolis/St. Paul has the largest concentration of Somali Americans in the United States.  The crackdown on immigrants in the Twin Cities has forced many Somali businesses to shut down.

A Somali Refugee's Arrival in America and the Situation Today

 The Washington Post posted on 15 December 2025 a commentary titled "I Came from Somalia at 19.  Let Me Tell You about the America I Met" by Mohamed Osman Mohamed.  

This is the account of a Somali who arrived in the United States in 2010 from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.  Now the executive director of the Nation of Poets in Minneapolis, he describes the welcome and help he received upon arrival and how that situation has changed so negatively today.

Trump Rants and ICE Raids Put Fear in Minnesota Somali Community

 The Washington Post published on 4 December 2025 an article titled "Minnesota, Known for a Warm Welcome, Turns Icy for Somali Immigrants" by Caroline O'Donovan and Emmanuel Felton.

A combination of disparaging remarks by President Trump about the Somali community in Minnesota and recent raids in the Twin Cities by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have instilled a sense of fear among Somali Americans.  

Ethnic Politics US Style: Somali Americans the Current Focus

 Reuters published on 4 December 2025 an article titled "Trump 'Garbage' Rhetoric about Somalis Draws Cheers from Administration, Silence from Republicans and Alarm from Critics" by Bianca Flowers, James Oliphant, David Hood-Nuno, and Joseph Ax.  

About 76,000 people of Somali descent live in Minnesota.  More than half of them were born in the United States.  President Trump and members of his administration have begun describing the Somali community in derogatory language.

Comment:  Any resident of the United States, Somali or otherwise, should be prosecuted for proven criminal acts.  But debasing an entire ethnic community for the actions of a few bad actors is not the America that I know and love. 

Somali Workers Force Amazon to Bargaining Table in Minneapolis

The New York Times published on 20 November 2018 a story titled "Somali Workers in Minnesota Force Amazon to Negotiate" by Karen Weise.

Somali refugees living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who work at an Amazon warehouse forced the company to negotiate arrangements to allow time to pray without being penalized for missing quotas. This was particularly significant because the facility does not hire union employees.

Somali Diaspora in Minnesota

The Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota published in December 2014 a policy report titled "The Somali Diaspora in the Twin Cities: Engagement and Implications for Return" by Ryan Allen, Carissa Slotterback, Kadra Abdi, and Ahmed Muhumud. 

Somalis living in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, are returning to Somalia with greater frequency.  Because of the fragile nature of the situation in Somalia, the visits tend to be temporary.  The limited social infrastructure such as health care helps to explain their reluctance to return permanently. 

Somali-Americans Try to Join ISIS

The New York Times reported on 20 April 2015 a story titled "6 Minnesotans Held in Plot to Join ISIS" by Scott Shane.  The FBI prevented six young Somali-Americans from Minneapolis from joining a colleague who managed to reach the Islamic State in Syria.  The six apparently were not recruited by anyone but decided on their own to go to Syria.  It is curious that al-Shabaab in Somalia is no longer the attraction for this small disaffected group.

American Jihadis

The New York Times published on 21 March 2015 an article titled "From Minneapolis to ISIS: An American's Path to Jihad" by Scott Shane.  The focus of the article is a young Somali-American who made his way from a seemingly normal life in Minneapolis to the Islamic State in Syria.  The article underscores the small number of Americans from various parts of the United States who have followed this route, but suggests Minneapolis has been ground zero for this kind of activity.

Buidling Trust in Minneapolis Somali Community

The Minneapolis Star Tribune carried on 12 October 2014 an Associated Press article titled "Prosecutor Fights Terrorism by Building Trust" by Amy Forliti.  The focus of the article is the U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis who is trying to work with the Somali community there to build mutual trust.

Somali-American Does Internship in Mogadishu

Saida Hassan is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota Education Department.  A Somali by birth, she grew up in Minneapolis.  In August 2014, she wrote about her internship this summer with The Heritage Institute for Policy Studies in Mogadishu.  Read the brief account of her experience in Mogadishu for a more positive view of developments in Somalia than one normally sees in the press coverage.  

Somali Remittances

There have been a series of recent articles on the subject of Somali remittances.  Africa in Fact, the journal of Good Governance Africa, published on 1 April 2014 a piece titled "From Mogadishu to Minneapolis, And Back" by Brian Klaas, a scholar at Oxford University.

The Rift Valley Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, published in March 2014 an analysis titled "Challenges for the Somali Money Transfer Sector" by Anna Lindley and Jason Mosley. 

The London-based Africa Research Institute (ARI) published on 27 January 2014 a piece titled "Somali Remittances: 10 Things You Need to Know" by Hannah Gibson, policy researcher at ARI.  It is also available in French.

The Africa Research Institute published on 14 February 2014 an article titled "Somali Remittances Update: Banking Up the Wrong Tree" by Edward Paice, director of ARI.

Somalia and the Westgate Shopping Mall Attack: Interview on Jack Rice Show

The Jack Rice Show (AM950 Radio KTNF) in Minnesota posted an interview with me on 4 October 2013. It dealt with the bombing in the Westgate Shopping Mall in Kenya by an al-Qaeda affiliated group known as al-Shabaab. The interview tried to identify what is al-Shabaab, what are its goals and what kind of impact is it having on the region. The interview also discussed Minnesota's ties to the group through its large Somali population and what steps that population is taking to discourage association with al-Shabaab.

Minneapolis-based Somali Youth Speak Out against Al-Shabaab

A Minneapolis-based non-governmental organization known as KA JOOG held a 25 minute news conference on 25 September 2013 that took direct aim at al-Shabaab and its tactics.

Minneapolis-St. Paul has the largest Somali diaspora in the United States. KA JOOG is a non-profit community organization that tries to assist young Somalis by identifying employment and positive mentoring. The press conference offers an informative and fascinating glimpse at the positive side of the Somali community in the United States.