U.S. Citizenship Vanishes Overnight: T.r.u.m.p Revokes Protections for Tens of Thousands of Somalis. What Happens to Them Now?
President Donald Trump announced Friday that he is immediately ending temporary deportation protections for Somali nationals living in Minnesota, expediting the conclusion of a program first implemented in 1991 under then-President George H. W. Bush.
“Minnesota, under Governor Waltz, is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity. I am, as President of the United States, hereby terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota. Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER!” Trump wrote in a late-night Truth Social post.
Trump’s declaration comes on the heels of a shocking investigative report by City Journal that said Minnesota, home to the country’s biggest Somali community, is rife with criminality and fraud under Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, and that a lot of the money is being funneled to a terrorist organization in Somalia:
Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone. Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.
In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab. As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”
Meanwhile, Walz is facing more federal scrutiny over his administration’s handling of a state housing program that was shut down amid widespread fraud allegations.
Department of Human Services temporary commissioner Shireen Gandhi asked federal officials to help terminate the Housing Stabilization Services program, citing “credible allegations of fraud” and “exponential growth in spending.”
The Medicaid-funded program was intended to help older adults and people with disabilities secure housing. Still, costs soared from an estimated $2.6 million annually in 2017 to $107 million by 2024, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Fraud cases have included Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future scandal, abuses in the state’s autism program, various Medicaid schemes, and most recently, housing assistance.
Two weeks ago, a Lakeville, Minn., man was sentenced in federal court to one year of probation for his involvement in the massive Feeding Our Future fraud investigation.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel sentenced Khadar Adan, who pleaded guilty in August to one count of theft of government property, for allowing a fraudulent food distribution site to operate out of his Minneapolis business center, JigJiga.
Adan admitted to accepting $1,000 in illicit proceeds and was ordered to pay the same amount in restitution, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported.
Adan was the last of three defendants tied to the Lake Street Kitchen scheme housed within JigJiga to plead guilty.
The $250 million Feeding Our Future case — centered on a St. Anthony nonprofit — is the largest pandemic-era fraud prosecution in the United States. Of the 75 people charged, 50 have entered guilty pleas. Prosecutors say the defendants falsely claimed to have provided millions of meals to children during the COVID-19 pandemic, instead diverting federal reimbursements to purchase luxury cars, real estate, and other high-end goods.
According to court records, Adan and his co-defendants claimed to have served 70,000 meals between December 2020 and April 2021 through Lake Street Kitchen, receiving “significant funds” in return. Federal prosecutors said only a small fraction of those meals were actually distributed.
Co-defendant Liban Yasin Alishire, who co-operated Lake Street Kitchen and another site, Community Enhancement Services, received more than $1.6 million and pleaded guilty in 2023.
Meanwhile, a former campaign associate of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) pleaded guilty last month to participating in the same scam, adding another chapter to the growing list of controversies surrounding the progressive lawmaker’s political orbit.
