migrants

MINNEAPOLIS — President Trump on Tuesday said he did not want Somali immigrants in the U.S., saying residents of the war-ravaged eastern African country are too reliant on the U.S. social safety net and add little to the United States.

Trump’s contemptuous description of the entire immigrant community is the latest example of his pointedly attacking the Somali diaspora in the United States. Somalis have been coming to Minnesota and other states, often as refugees, since the 1990s. The president made no distinction between citizens and noncitizens.

The president’s comment came days after his administration announced it is halting all asylum decisions after the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington. The suspect in last week’s incident is originally from Afghanistan, but Trump has used the moment to raise questions about immigrants from other nations, including Somalia.

“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country,” Trump told reporters near the end of a lengthy Cabinet meeting. He added: “Their country is no good for a reason. Your country stinks and we don’t want them in our country.”

Federal authorities are preparing a targeted immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota that would focus on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S., according to a person familiar with the planning.

The enforcement operation could begin in the coming days and is expected to focus on the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and people with final orders of deportation, the person said. Teams of immigration agents would spread across the Twin Cities in what the person described as a directed, high-priority sweep, though the plans remain subject to change.

Trump for years has criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who emigrated from Somalia in 1995 as a child. But he accelerated his attacks on Somalis on social media last week after Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, published unsubstantiated allegations in a magazine called City Journal, citing unnamed sources who say money stolen from Minnesota programs has gone to Al Shabab, an Al Qaeda-linked militant group that controls parts of Somalia.

Trump vowed last week in a social media post to send Somalis “back to where they came from,” and alleged Minnesota, home to the largest Somali community in the United States, is “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.” On Tuesday, the president said Somalis in the U.S. should “go back to where they came from and fix it.”

He specifically pledged to terminate temporary legal protections for Somalis living in Minnesota, a move that is triggering fear in the state’s deeply rooted immigrant community, along with doubts about whether the White House has the legal authority to enact the directive as described.

The announcement drew immediate pushback from some state leaders and immigration experts, who characterized Trump’s declaration as a legally dubious effort to sow suspicion toward Minnesota’s Somali community.

The move would affect only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of Somalis living in Minnesota. A report produced for Congress in August put the number of Somalis have temporary protected status at 705 nationwide.

Trump also renewed his criticism of Omar, whose family fled the civil war in Somalia and spent several years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the U.S.

“We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way, if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said. “Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”

On Tuesday, Omar pushed back at Trump on social media, saying, “His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.”

He added about Somali immigrants, “These aren’t people that work. These aren’t people that say, ‘Let’s go, c’mon. Let’s make this place great.’ These are people that do nothing but complain.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called Trump’s message “wrong” and said that Somali immigrants have helped improve his community.

“They have started businesses and created jobs. They have added to the cultural fabric of what Minneapolis is,” Frey said. “To again villainize an entire group is ridiculous under any circumstances. And the way that Donald Trump is consistent in doing it, I think calls into question major constitutional violations. And it certainly violates the moral fabric of what we stand by in this country as Americans.”

Madhani writes for the Associated Press. Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is pausing all immigration applications such as requests for green cards for people from 19 countries banned from travel earlier this year, as part of sweeping immigration changes in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard troops.

The changes were outlined in a policy memo posted Tuesday on the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency tasked with processing and approving all requests for immigration benefits.

The pause puts on hold a wide range of immigration-related decisions such as green card applications or naturalizations for immigrants from those 19 countries that the Trump administration has described as high-risk. It’s up to the agency’s director, Joseph Edlow, on when to lift the pause, the memo said.

The administration in June banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access for those from seven others, citing national security concerns.

The ban applied to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen while the restricted access applied to people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

At the time, no action was taken against immigrants from those countries who were already in the U.S. before the travel ban went into effect.

But now the news from USCIS means those people already in the U.S. — regardless of when they arrived — will come under extra scrutiny.

The agency said it would conduct a comprehensive review of all “approved benefit requests” for immigrants who entered the country during the Biden administration.

The agency cited the shooting of two National Guard troops by a suspect who is an Afghan national as a reason for the pause and heightened scrutiny for people from those countries. One National Guard soldier was killed and another wounded in the Thanksgiving week shooting near the White House.

“In light of identified concerns and the threat to the American people, USCIS has determined that a comprehensive re-review, potential interview, and re-interview of all aliens from high-risk countries of concern who entered the United States on or after January 20, 2021 is necessary,” the agency said.

The agency said in the Tuesday memo that within 90 days it would create a prioritized list of immigrants for review and if necessary, referral to immigration enforcement or other law enforcement agencies.

Since the shooting, the administration has announced a flurry of decisions it was taking to scrutinize immigrants already in the country and those seeking to come to the U.S.

Last week, the director of USCIS said in a social media post that his agency would be reexamining green card applications for people from countries “of concern.” But the policy directive Tuesday goes further and lays out in more detail the scope of who will be affected.

USCIS also said last week that it was pausing all asylum decisions, and the State Department said it was halting visas for Afghans who assisted the U.S. war effort.

Days before the shooting, USCIS said in a separate memo that the administration would review the cases of all refugees who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration.

Critics have said that the Trump administration’s actions have amounted to collective punishment for immigrants.

Santana writes for the Associated Press.