US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticised Somali immigrants in the US, claiming they are too reliant on the social safety net and contribute little to the country. During a cabinet meeting, he referred to Somali immigrants as “garbage” and said they should be sent back.“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country,” Trump said near the end of a lengthy Cabinet meeting, as cited by AP. “Their country is no good for a reason. Your country stinks and we don’t want them in our country.”

Trump claimed that Somali immigrants “do nothing but complain” and argued that people coming from difficult circumstances who continue to complain are not wanted in the US.“These are people who do nothing but complain,” he said. “They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing … When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,” Trump said.The Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area, home to most Somali residents, will see intensified deportation efforts this week, targeting primarily those with final removal orders. The operation will deploy “strike teams” of ICE agents and other federal officers, including about 100 agents brought in from across the country, as reported by the New York Times.The move follows several years of fraud cases involving dozens of Somali residents, whom prosecutors allege “lied to the state to receive reimbursements for meal disbursements, medical care, housing and autism services.” The Trump administration had previously threatened to revoke temporary protected status for Somalis in Minnesota, describing the state as a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”Trump has also long criticised Rep Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat who emigrated from Somalia as a child in 1995. Last week, he intensified his attacks on Somali immigrants on social media after conservative activist Christopher Rufo published unverified claims in City Journal, citing unnamed sources that alleged money stolen from Minnesota programs had been sent to al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked militant group controlling parts of Somalia.“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, as cited by AP. “Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”On Tuesday, Omar responded to Trump on social media, saying, “his obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.”Minnesota is home to the largest Somali community in the United States, with over 61,000 people of Somali ancestry among the state’s roughly 5.7 million residents, according to census data.Somalis have been arriving in the US steadily since the early 1990s, often as refugees fleeing the country’s civil war. Many were drawn to Minnesota because of the state’s social services and welfare programs, which eased resettlement, and because of the growing Somali diaspora already established there, as cited by The Time.