Why Trump just revoked TPS for Somalis: The Rufo report that changed policy overnight

On November 19, investigative journalist and BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo, alongside reporter Ryan Thorpe, broke a story that went instantly viral, rapidly spreading across conservative media, social platforms, and mainstream outlets.

Titled “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer,” the article peels back the layers and connects the dots of yearslong federal investigations into large-scale fraud involving members of Minnesota’s Somali-American community.

“The basic story is this: Over the last 10 years, Minnesota's Somali community — it's about 100,000 people, mostly in Minneapolis, a neighborhood called Little Mogadishu for obvious reasons — has been, you know, conducting fraud at an eye-popping scale,” Rufo explained on a recent episode of “Rufo & Lomez.”

“We're talking about billions of dollars ... that are getting sucked out of taxpayer programs, routed through various fake NGOs into the pockets of Somalis in Minnesota,” he added.

According to Rufo’s reporting, a web of interconnected schemes, enabled by lax oversight under Gov. Tim Walz's administration and Minnesota's generous welfare system, allows these Somali immigrants to exploit various government programs, especially those intended to serve low-income and immigrant families, like Medicaid, child food programs, and food stamps/SNAP.

While the feds have long known about these fraud schemes and have even been able to recover some of the funds and secure convictions, their investigations have been focused strictly on the theft and laundering.

Rufo, however, was the first to ask the question: But where is the money going? His bombshell piece revealed the answer: Much of it is allegedly going back to Somalia, specifically into the hands of Al-Shabaab — a designated terrorist group.

“The other kind of dirty secret of this story is that the Minnesota state government, the Democrats who are in charge, Tim Walz and others, have effectively turned a blind eye to this because they don't want to offend the Somalis. They don't want to earn the accusation of racism with the Somali activists who’re very, very ready and very eager to deploy, and they feel that they need the Somali vote in Minneapolis to win statewide,” Rufo told co-host Jonathan Keeperman.

“So you have this cycle of corruption, payoffs, kickbacks, and political influence, and I hope that the story, which blows open this whole scheme, will have some impact.”

Rufo’s wish is already coming true. Just two days after its publication, President Trump announced the revocation of Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in Minnesota on Truth Social.

Rufo also hopes, however, that his reporting will spark dialogue about immigration, American identity, and how the convergence of the two should determine who we allow into our country and how we expect them to live among us.

He argues that the reigning progressive dogma when it comes to immigration — diversity is strength, all immigrants are the same, and assimilation is a byproduct of white supremacy — has opened the door for Somali clan corruption to colonize Minneapolis and build a billion-dollar fraud pipeline to fund Al-Shabaab.

“When [immigrants] go through the Visa process, it doesn't magically evaporate their former culture,” says Rufo.

“Look at dysfunction in Somalia. Look at corruption in Somalia. Look at how in Somalia money moves. Look at norms regarding theft. ... Now compare it to what's happening here [in Minnesota].”

Today “the primary source of income for Somali-Americans in Minnesota and also the primary source of income for the Al-Shabaab terrorist organization in Somalia appears to be fraudulently obtained United States taxpayer money,” he adds.

Keeperman praises Rufo’s reporting as “super important.”

He urges that “we need to be able to point to specific things to demonstrate the larger point about what Americanism is versus what it isn't and why it's important if we want to preserve America as it is — that we are bringing in people who will make America more like America and less like these other dysfunctional places they're coming from.”To learn more, check out Rufo’s original reporting here or watch the video above.

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