FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A State Department spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Signal Wednesday that no new Somali refugees have been admitted to the U.S. since President Donald Trump took office.
The Somali community in Minnesota has gained renewed scrutiny in the wake of multiple fraud scandals, including a massive $250 million fraud scandal involving the now-defunct nonprofit Feeding Our Futures.
“Since President Trump took office on January 20, 2025, no Somali refugees have been admitted in our nation,” the State Department representative told The Daily Signal. “Admitted refugees during the Biden-era receive reception and placement services, the first 90 days of which have been provided by the State Department.”
The State Department’s Refugee Admissions Program tracks how many refugees the U.S. admits every month. Since Trump signed an executive order suspending entry into the U.S. under the program, only a handful of refugees have been admitted from three countries: Afghanistan, El Salvador, and South Africa.
Thousands of Somali refugees entered the country in the first months of fiscal year 2025, however, which began on Oct. 1, 2024. The program records the admission of 4,992 Somali refugees from October through January. Six hundred and seventy of them settled in Minnesota. Ohio received the second-largest number at 245, followed closely by New York at 211. In fiscal year 2024, 1,267 Somalis settled in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Roughly 76,000 people of Somali descent live in Minnesota, more than half of whom were born in the U.S., according to Census Bureau data cited by CBS News.
The Somali Fraud Scandals
Multiple high-profile fraud charges and convictions have drawn the Minnesota Somali community into the national spotlight.
The office of U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen has charged 78 defendants connected to the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, and 56 of them have pleaded guilty. Authorities have also filed charges in a $14 million fraud case involving an autism program and a multi-million-dollar fraud case involving housing stabilization services.
Last month, conservative journalist Christopher Rufo highlighted how many fraudsters sent cash to the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab.
Members of this community reportedly went to train with al-Shabaab in Somalia and the Islamic State, but law enforcement has partnered with others in the community to combat radicalism.
Somali refugees come to the U.S. to escape the civil war in their homeland, which has dragged on for more than 30 years. Piracy, grinding poverty, and the influence of radical Islamist groups like Al-Shabaab also make life hard in the East African country.
“Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars,” Trump said in a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. “They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you.” Trump condemned Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who came from Somalia and represents a Somali-majority area of the state, as “garbage.”
“We strongly condemn the dangerous and openly racist rhetoric targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar and the broader Somali American community,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an Islamic activist group that often pushes leftist causes, told The Daily Signal in response to Trump’s remarks. “Efforts to smear all Somali Americans with raw racism is the latest example of political leaders trying to use a boogeyman to distract the American public from real issues.”
CAIR, which has historic ties to terrorist-funding networks, did not address the fraud scandal in its statement.
State Rep. Kristin Robbins, a Republican and chair of the committee on Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy, previously told The Daily Signal that while most of the fraudsters are Somali, she has worked with whistleblowers who also hail from that community.
“Two things can be true at the same time: Most of the fraud of the people so far indicted and prosecuted has been from the Somali community. Also, some of the best whistleblowers have come from the Somali community,†she said.
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