'Send them back': Somalia First pitted against America First in Minnesota as Ilhan Omar attacks Trump over special status

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he was "terminating, effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota."

"Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing," continued Trump. "Send them back to where they came from. It's OVER!"

The decision to revoke Somalia's TPS designation has pitted Trump's America First agenda against Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar's apparent Somalia First agenda.

Omar, who claimed last year that the "U.S government will do what [Somali-Americans] tell the U.S. government to do," suggested at a press conference with state Democrats on Monday that Trump lacks the authority to terminate Somalia's TPS designation.

'The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.'

"If you are confused, if you feel threatened, know that the law is on your side, and our demented president can't do anything about it," said the Democratic ethno-nationalist. "For the 300 or so people that are impacted that currently live in Minnesota and across the country, we see you, and we stand with you, and we will make sure we do everything that we can to help make sure that your status is adjusted before March of 2026."

If a country has an ongoing armed conflict, has an environmental disaster, or faces other extraordinary conditions, the Department of Homeland Security secretary can designate that country for TPS, thereby shielding its nationals squatting in the U.S. from deportation for a period of six to 18 months.

Somalia has been a TPS-designated country since 1991. Former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended Somalia's designation through March 17, 2026, and redesignated the country, paving the way for thousands of additional Somalis to become eligible for the program.

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Photo by Pete Kiehart for the Washington Post via Getty Images

According to a Congressional Research Service report, there were 705 Somali nationals covered by the program as of March 31, 2025.

"TPS was a program that was always meant to be temporary," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters in Minneapolis on Sunday.

Noem noted that the program needs "to be evaluated to make sure that it comes and is always implemented in the process for which it was intended."

Trump's decision to terminate Somalia's designation came the day after BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo and investigative reporter Ryan Thorpe reported on the alleged fraud perpetrated by numerous members of the Somali community in Minnesota as well as on the alleged direction of stolen Minnesota Medicaid and welfare funds by members of the community to terrorists abroad through a network of informal clan-based money traders.

According to the duo's City Journal report, federal counterterrorism sources have confirmed "that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab."

One confidential source indicated that "the largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer."

'It is a political attack on the Somali and Muslim community driven by Islamophobic and hateful rhetoric.'

Al-Shabaab is a Somalia-based, Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization committed to waging a global jihad.

In her remarks on Monday, Ilhan Omar suggested that the conviction and/or indictment of scores of Somalis on fraud charges should not be held against the community at large. Minnesota is presently home to over 42,500 Somali natives.

"You have right now 57 people who have been convicted. So if your assumption is that we should all be collectively held responsible for the fact that 57 people have committed a crime and are being held accountable and are going to jail, then that's your prerogative, but we don't feel the weight of what those individuals have done," said Omar.

The Somali-born Democrat suggested further that Trump had no evidence to show that her community was funding terrorism abroad with tax resources, claiming that the accusation endangered Somalis across the nation.

In addition to condemning Trump, Omar suggested that the American citizens who support him are "ignorant" and that their acceptance of his claims "makes us look like a stupid nation that does not believe in truth but traffics in lies."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose co-founder said in a speech that the Hamas terror attacks on unarmed women and children made him "happy," was also up in arms about Trump's announcement.

Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR, stated, "This decision, fueled by harmful misinformation campaigns that we believe have external political motives, will tear families apart and send individuals to a country they have not known for over 20 years. This is not just a bureaucratic change; it is a political attack on the Somali and Muslim community driven by Islamophobic and hateful rhetoric."

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