U.S. President Donald Trump sparked controversy after calling Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar and members of the Somali immigrant community “garbage” and suggesting they should “go back to where they came from” during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at the White House.
Speaking at the end of the two-hour session, Trump, 79, addressed immigration and the Somali community in Minnesota. “I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you … Somebody will say, ‘Oh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country,” he said, according to a clip shared by the White House.
“Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don’t want them in our country,” Trump added, noting he could “say that about other countries too.” He continued, “The U.S. is at a tipping point. It could go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
Trump specifically targeted Rep. Omar, who made history in 2019 as the first Somali-American congresswoman. “Ilhan Omar is garbage. Her friends are garbage,” he said. “These aren’t people that work. These aren’t people that say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’ These are people that do nothing but complain.”
He went on, “You know, if they came from paradise, and they said, ‘This isn’t paradise,’ but when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but b—-, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”
Trump’s comments followed reports from The New York Times over the weekend, which said federal prosecutors had charged dozens of people in Minnesota with felonies connected to a fraud case. Prosecutors allege that the scheme stole hundreds of millions of dollars from a federal program designed to feed children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fifty-nine people have already been convicted, and investigations are ongoing into three separate plots that allegedly misappropriated more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds over the past five years. Authorities said the fraud occurred within the state’s Somali diaspora.
A senior law enforcement official told NBC News that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is planning an operation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area this week, though officers will not specifically target the Somali community. Some individuals may be arrested if they are found to be violating immigration laws.
Following Trump’s remarks, Omar reposted some of his comments on X (formerly Twitter) and wrote, “His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.” A spokesperson for Omar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, 61, and the state’s Somali community. On Thanksgiving, he made a derogatory remark about Walz in a late-night Truth Social post, and doubled down on the comments while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Nov. 30. “Yeah, I think there’s something wrong with him, absolutely, sure,” Trump said. “I think there’s something wrong with him. Anybody that would do what he did, anybody that would allow those people into a state and pay billions of dollars [to] Somalia — we give billions of dollars to Somalia. It’s not even a country, because it doesn’t function like a country. It’s got a name, but it doesn’t function like a country. Yeah, there’s something wrong with Walz.”
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