Minnesota Senator Zaynab Mohamed had a pretty good idea what President Donald Trump thought of Somali immigrants before his racist rant during a cabinet meeting on December 2.
“I was disheartened, I was sad, but I wasn’t shocked,” Sen. Mohamed said recently to Sahan Journal digital producer Alberto Villafan. “This is an unserious president who’s been speaking [about] people of our community this way for the last decade,” she continued. “I think I was more shocked at the level of action that he’s taken since those statements that he made.”
This month, the Trump administration has targeted Minnesota’s Somali community through Operation Metro Surge: a wave of aggressive ICE arrests. These operations have created anxiety and fear in the Somali community. They’ve also led to community solidarity and pride.
On Tuesday, December 16, Mohamed joined Sahan Journal for an Instagram Live event to discuss ICE operations directed against Somalis in Minnesota and the various ways community members and leaders are responding to the arrests.
Here are key takeaways from our conversation:
How would you describe the ICE operations in Minnesota?
Mohamed describes the current ICE operations in Minnesota as an “invasion of our state.” ICE agents are operating on private property without the necessary judicial warrants, according to Mohamed and immigration advocates. Recently, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a lawsuit accusing ICE and the Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem of violating the First and Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens in Minnesota.
Mohamed: “You have random people who are deployed by a federal government that does not care about safety. That is deploying hundreds of people who are driving in unmarked vehicles, who are driving vehicles with … out-of-state license plates, who are not identifying themselves, who are not carrying a badge, who don’t have judicial warrants to arrest. People who are wearing ski masks and hiding their faces, going up to people and asking them, like, ‘Who are you? Show me your residency, where are you going?’ That is not an enforcement of the law.”
Why are these ICE operations targeting Somali Minnesotans?
The ICE operations are about creating alienation over enforcement, Senator Mohamed says. Mohamed argues that because the Somali community comprises mostly citizens and legal residents, the current surge isn’t really about immigration enforcement.
Mohamed: “[Trump]wants to create us versus them, where he wants to make us feel small, where he wants to alienate us so that we don’t have other communities supporting us.”
Are the ICE operations only targeting undocumented Somali community members?
ICE agents are arresting and harassing Somali U.S. citizens. The arrest of a 20-year-old U.S. citizen named Mubashir in Cedar Riverside showed ICE acting with a disregard for legal status
Mohamed: “[Mubashir] was a young guy who was on his lunch break, so I believe he was on his way to go get lunch, to go pick up food and ICE agents just pulled up, grabbed him, arrested him….People were screaming when he was in the car that he’s a United [States] citizen, he’s a citizen, he’s a citizen. They [ICE agents] were not stopping.
I think he’s just one of the countless stories that we hear when they got here that first day. They [ICE agents] stopped two older men who were Somali, who told them that they were US citizens. Both of them had their passport IDs and they stopped anyway, they questioned them… What I worry most about is the moms who don’t speak English, who are stopped on their way to work, on the way back from work… mothers who work overnight in these factories and the level of harassment that they have to deal with. We’re not going to know every single story, but those sit on the back of my mind. And I think about that often.”
What should Somali community members, or anyone, do during ICE interactions?
Mohamed and other community leaders want people to know their rights during ICE interactions. Community leaders are urging all residents, including citizens, to know their rights when dealing with ICE agents. Also, advocates are telling community members to carry physical identification and to remember that immigration agents are supposed to follow rules that govern their interactions with immigrants and others.
Mohamed: “In order for them [ICE agents] to question you, they have to have a judicial warrant, and that means a warrant that’s signed by a judge. And if they don’t have that, then you don’t have to answer their questions…. You have a right to an attorney and … you can just say, ‘Talk to my attorney.’”
How are the ICE operations impacting the Somali community in their daily lives?
The increase in enforcement has created fear in the community, and led many people to withdraw from community activity and public spaces. That’s left typically busy hubs like Karmel Mall unusually quiet. Many Somali families and workers are choosing to stay home instead of going to businesses or mosques.
Mohamed: “People aren’t going outside the way that they used to, and it’s a shame, but I understand it….
They don’t want their family members to be kidnapped. They don’t want to be questioned by random people. They don’t want to justify their residency. They don’t want to have to deal with the level of harassment that’s coming from random people we’ve never met, who are often scary and who have been aggressive, who are pepper-spraying people. And so they’re choosing to do the peaceful thing, which is just stay home.”
How are community members responding to the ICE operations?
There is a lot of community resilience and grassroots support. Community members have organized food drives and provided housing for neighbors who feel unsafe in their own homes.
Mohamed: “The last two weeks has showed me how powerful, how well connected our community is, and how much they really just care about each other…. A week ago, I made a video where I said, we need to start a food drive. I’ll take the first step forward. It’s really important that we take care of our families who don’t want to be outside right now because they don’t want to be harassed by ICE agents. And we had hundreds of people drop off items delivered to their neighbors. This isn’t organized by anything other than community members wanting to do good.”
Senator Mohamed emphasized the importance of community members creating a support system with their neighbors during this time. Community members can help people with food drives, carpools, and legal rights education.
Mohamed: “It’s really good to know who your neighbors are, but it’s also really good to know the school your kids go to, or even you go to. Because right now, you probably have kids who aren’t showing up to school because their parents don’t want to be harassed by ICE agents. You can create a support system for them. You can go and drive the kids to school and pick them up. For those parents, you can create a food drive…. See which parents in the community don’t want to be outside [where] they’re harassed by ICE agents, and drop off meals to them, or groceries. I think there’s so many [things people can do to help]. You can become a legal observer. You can learn to become a trainer and then train people in your neighborhood.”
Somali youth are combating fear and changing the narrative on social media. Younger Somali Americans are countering racists attacks by using humor on platforms like TikTok to assert their confidence and their right to exist in Minnesota.
Mohamed: “I love it. I think it shows how creative our people are…I think it shows how funny they are. It shows how confident and comfortable they are in this country. We also live here. We also serve. This is our country. We’re not going anywhere.”
What are community organizations doing right now?
Organizations are partnering to create networks, like the Immigrant Defense Network, to respond to ICE arrests. These grassroots organizations are providing rapid-response teams, legal observers, and “Know Your Rights” training across the state.
Mohamed: “I think what’s really special about the Immigrant Defense Network is it’s a collective organization…hundreds of them, all of them from different backgrounds and races.
There are these rapid response group chats all over the state, and often, when I hear [about an immigration incident], I’ll text somebody from the Immigrant Defense Network, and they’ll send some of their folks over there..”
CAIR-Minnesota launched a new community task force to respond to ICE arrests and amplify Somali pride.
Mohamed: “I think the task force is …meant to instill pride in people and in the community. And, you know, they’re also asking people to go shop at these small businesses right now that are having a shortage of sales because people are staying home. I think what’s different about the task force is [that] we as Somalis have never had to question our own immigration status. We have to do that this time for the first time ever.”
Disclosure: For this story, Sahan newsroom staff used artificial intelligence to help us quickly transcribe audio from the video livestream and compile an outline of key takeaways. A Sahan reporter and editor took these starting materials to draft the list, above. Using AI allowed us to efficiently adapt our live video interview into a story for Sahan’s website.
You can watch the full recording of the livestream below:
