by Bianca Flowers
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – When immigration agents began an aggressive campaign in Minneapolis last month, Kosar Mohammed began knocking on doors, fielding late-night phone calls and mobilizing other Somali Americans to join ad hoc response teams. Many fear they will be targeted, a fear that reminds them of the state surveillance and authoritarian authority they left behind when they resettled in the United States.
More than 100 volunteers are now patrolling south Minneapolis, handing out “Know Your Rights” guides and escorting frightened elders — part of a broad grassroots effort to counter what many say are constitutionally questionable attacks that are destabilizing Minnesota’s Somali community of about 80,000, which has one of the largest refugee populations in the country.
“You never think people are going to grab you off the street … and say, ‘Prove to me you’re a citizen,'” Muhammad said, referring to reports of aggressive tactics by agents. “It’s not that we never thought it was impossible. We just believed the Constitution would protect us from this level of interrogation.”
Trump’s 3,000-agents push stokes fears of voter intimidation
Republican President Donald Trump’s order to deploy 3,000 federal agents has heightened accusations from Democrats and local leaders that he is targeting a politically influential community ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, deepening concerns that the actions amount to an act of intimidation aimed at suppressing voter turnout in Somalia.
Trump, who has described Somalis as “trash” who should be kicked out of the country, said the operations were necessary to combat crime, although many of those arrested were not criminally charged or convicted. He also cited a fraud scandal involving stolen federal funds from Minnesota’s social welfare programs to justify sending agents into the state, many of them from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Democrats and community leaders have accused agents of harassing peaceful protesters, engaging in racial profiling and searching homes without warrants. Minneapolis has been on edge since the Jan. 7 shooting death of 37-year-old Renee Good by an immigration agent.
“Many community members have fled the war, and this administration is triggering another war zone,” said Abdullahi Farah, co-chair of the American Leadership Group on Somalia, an advocacy group formed in response to hate crimes and political attacks against Somalis. He said Trump’s racist rhetoric targeting black people and other immigrants of color has emboldened far-right activists and had a destabilizing effect on small businesses and citizens’ overall sense of safety.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Reuters that immigrants who receive an executive order or I-205 deportation order “have received full due process and a final order of removal from an immigration judge.”
Resist immigration attacks
Business owners in Cedar Riverside, a normally bustling Somali neighborhood dotted with restaurants, boutiques and convenience stores, say activity has quieted down significantly since immigration agents arrived there last month.
“It’s really slow,” said Rashid Jama, a grocery store manager in the nearby area, also known as the West Bank. “A lot of our vendors are Latino and they’re afraid to go to work.”
The efforts of Muhammad, a third-year doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, are part of a broader wave of grassroots initiatives fighting back by filming arrests, planning peaceful protests and accelerating voter outreach.
More than a dozen grassroots organizers, local officials and residents interviewed by Reuters said some Somali Americans fear the raids are aimed at suppressing voter turnout ahead of November’s midterm elections.
“What this shows is that if we get rid of them, if we scare them, they’re not going to vote in the 2026 midterm elections. We know that’s the goal,” Farah said. Farah’s organization is working with other grassroots groups to educate people on priorities like opposing ICE raids, as well as broader issues like affordability.
Mosques and adjacent community centers in Minnesota are now becoming centers of political education, local leaders say.
Civil rights advocates and scholars say the immigration actions in Minneapolis echo past crackdowns on black and Latino communities, fueling concerns about political scapegoating, said Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham University.
Somali-American voters have largely supported Democrats since refugees began settling in the United States in the 1990s, then became more politically active in the 2000s. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar is the most high-profile member of the community and a frequent target of Trump’s racist attacks.
Asked about the incident and the Secret Service tactics that residents have condemned, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Reuters that “immigrants who fail to contribute to our economy, defraud Americans and refuse to integrate into our society should not be here.”
Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Alex Plechash denied the attack was politically motivated, calling the allegation “absolutely false” but said complaints about aggressive tactics deserved review.
Some Somali community leaders say mobilizing voters will be a top priority in the coming months.
“The power we have is to vote,” said Abdullahi Kahiye, 37, who said he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2024. “ICE and anyone seeking to intimidate the Somali community will not succeed.”
(Reporting by Bianca Flowers in Minneapolis; Editing by Kate Stafford and Deepa Babington)
