Minneapolis (Somalia Today) — The Trump administration has rushed more than 100 federal immigration agents into Minnesota to hunt for Somali immigrants it wants to deport. But as temperatures plunge and legal realities bite, the operation has so far produced more fear than arrests in the state that hosts America’s largest Somali community.
Across Minneapolis and its suburbs on Thursday, Somali families called immigration lawyers, skipped shifts, and kept children home from school after President Donald Trump described Somali immigrants as “garbage” and renewed threats to strip their protections.
Advocacy groups scrambled to verify a blizzard of social media posts about unmarked vehicles and plainclothes agents outside malls, mosques, and apartment blocks.
“What is happening now goes far beyond normal immigration enforcement,” said Abdiqani A. Jabane, a Somali American immigration lawyer in Minneapolis. “People feel like they are suddenly at risk just for being Somali, even if they are citizens.”
Fear and rumours
The panic followed a New York Times report that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was launching an “intensive” operation in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area, focused primarily on undocumented Somalis with final deportation orders.
The plan, the report said, called for mobile “strike teams” composed of ICE officers and other federal personnel, flown in from around the country.
A parallel Minnesota Reformer report confirmed that roughly 100 officers were being deployed and that local officials had been briefed. Minneapolis council member Jamal Osman urged residents to stay calm while acknowledging “many families are fearful tonight.”
By Thursday afternoon, however, city officials and immigrant rights groups said they had seen no sign of mass arrests or neighborhood sweeps in the Twin Cities. Instead, they described scattered “knock-and-talk” visits and routine checks – and a much larger wave of dread.
“People are incredibly scared,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said, after visiting Somali gathering points in the Cedar–Riverside area and around Karmel Mall, a bustling East African shopping center in south Minneapolis.
“I’m hearing people ask if it’s safe to go to the grocery store and whether agents might target classrooms.”
At Karmel Mall, 63-year-old Amina Shuriye said her children had begged her not to leave the house because she wears a hijab. “We don’t know what will happen. Are they going to hurt us? What are they planning?”
Small deportable pool
Even as the president talks about deporting “hundreds” of Somalis, official data shows that only a relatively small number of people in Minnesota could realistically face deportation.
Census-based population estimates suggest about 107,000 people of Somali descent live in Minnesota, roughly 2% of the state’s residents, with more than 80,000 in the Twin Cities metro.
The overwhelming majority are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. According to the state demographer, around 5,800 Somalis in Minnesota are not citizens – a figure that includes people on visas, refugees, and undocumented migrants, as highlighted by a KSTP analysis.
One leading advocate, Jaylani Hussein of CAIR-Minnesota, estimates that the truly undocumented Somali population may number only a few hundred.
Nationally, Somali Americans are also increasingly settled: about 87% of foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota are naturalised citizens, according to a recent PBS explainer on the community’s trajectory in the state.
That arithmetic – high citizenship rates, relatively few non-citizens, and even fewer undocumented residents – helps explain why, despite dramatic language from Washington, local officials say they do not expect a wave of deportation flights carrying hundreds of people.
“The numbers the administration is talking about simply don’t match the reality on the ground,” one Minnesota official said.
Legal and practical limits
Immigration lawyers say federal agents must still navigate years of legal protections built up around refugees and long-term residents, even in an era of hard-line policy.
Many Somalis arrived during the 1990s civil war and have since obtained green cards or citizenship; those with removal orders often have pending appeals or fresh asylum claims.
“In practice, they are hunting for a fairly small group of people with final orders who have lost every appeal,” said one Minnesota-based immigration attorney. “That is a far cry from giving the impression that an entire community is suddenly deportable.”
Trump has vowed to shrink even that protected group. In a late-November Truth Social post, he declared he was “terminating” Temporary Protected Status for Somalis – a designation that shields about 700 people nationwide from deportation because of conflict and instability in their home country.
He has also directed officials to re-examine green cards held by nationals of “countries of concern”, including Somalia, under a sweeping White House order. Lawyers say that could trigger fresh interviews and reviews, but would still face due-process limits.
For now, winter itself is another constraint. With wind chill pushing temperatures well below freezing in Minneapolis this week, community organisers say even determined agents can only spend so long outside searching for people at bus stops, parking lots, or playgrounds.
Grassroots patrols
Community groups have responded with their own informal “rapid response” network. Teams of volunteers drove around Minneapolis on Thursday to check reports of agents circulating near Somali businesses, apartment complexes, and schools.
Dieu Do, a community organiser with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, said teams carried whistles to warn residents if they confirmed ICE activity – a tactic borrowed from other cities that have seen aggressive immigration raids.
So far, however, many tips had turned out to be false alarms.
“There is a completely understandable level of panic,” Do said. “People are trying to protect each other, but rumours spread faster than facts.”
Some Somalis with citizenship say Trump’s words have shaken their own sense of safety.
“If he came to our neighbourhood, he would see who we are,” said 26-year-old Amin Hassan, an American citizen who grew up in Minneapolis.
“We work, we pay taxes, we love this country. But when he calls us ‘garbage’, it makes you feel like your passport doesn’t matter.”
Truck driver Abdihakim Omar, who voted for Trump in last year’s election, said he now regrets that choice. “I’m done with him,” he said. “From now on, I will vote for people who respect us as human beings.”
Political backlash
Trump’s “garbage” comment – delivered during a White House meeting as he railed against alleged fraud in Minnesota’s social-service programmes – has triggered a fierce backlash from Minnesota leaders, who accuse him of smearing an entire community over isolated cases.
Governor Tim Walz denounced the remarks as “slanderous” and “beneath the office”, stressing the contributions of Somali entrepreneurs, health workers, and taxi drivers across the state.
Frey and St. Paul mayor Melvin Carter have also pledged that local police will not act as immigration agents, reiterating both cities’ “sanctuary” policies even as officers help manage protests outside any federal raids.
National civil-rights groups warn that Trump’s language could embolden harassment and hate crimes. Somali leaders say they are already seeing children taunted at school and families agonising over whether to leave Minnesota altogether.
Immigration experts say it may take days to determine how many arrests, if any, the Minnesota operation results in.
They expect authorities to detain some people with long-standing removal orders and possibly fly them to third countries, given the difficulties of deporting directly to Somalia. But they also predict far fewer deportations than the rhetoric suggests.
“The real damage is psychological,” Jabane said. “Even if they only arrest a few dozen people, they have made a whole community feel like they do not belong.”
