Mary Rooke Commentary and Analysis Writer
A potentially massive Somali fraud ring uncovered in Minnesota, where they allegedly siphoned over $1 billion in taxpayer funds from programs meant for feeding children, housing the homeless, and providing autism therapy, isn’t just a crime story. It has become a flashpoint that’s forced America to confront whether or not a nation can prioritize its own citizens and resources without being labeled xenophobic.
President Donald Trump made the fraud national news after a Truth Social post in which he accused Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz of presiding over a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.” He vowed to terminate “the Temporary Protected Status (TPS Program) for Somalis in Minnesota.”
“Minnesota, under Governor Waltz, is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity. I am, as President of the United States, hereby 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. Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER! President DJT,” Trump said. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)
Trump didn’t stop at revoking TPS for all Somali recipients. He halted asylum from “Third World” countries, and paused green cards for “countries of concern.”
Like clockwork, the Somali diaspora in government positions around the country began denouncing Trump’s comments, including Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar. She claimed Trump’s statements against the fraud were xenophobic scapegoating and even claimed a level of victimhood in the fraud scheme. And then there’s this gem from Omar in a resurfaced clip that’s gone mega-viral, where she declares (as a sitting U.S. representative) that “Ethiopia and Kenya stole our Land. We must work together to liberate our occupied territories. Somalia is for Somalis Only.”
In a leaked video from Jan. 27, Rep. @IlhanMN gave a speech in Minneapolis in Somalian where she expressed an agenda of supporting the Somali government’s ethno-nationalist vision in east Africa. She wants land around Somalia to be forcibly retaken. Read: https://t.co/XWovqA4g8N
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 29, 2024
It is perfectly acceptable for Omar to preach open borders and DEI orthodoxy in the U.S., but back home in Somalia? It’s all about ethnic purity and reclaiming stolen Somali soil from neighbors.
There’s a reason Trump’s comment, “Let them go back to where they came from,” reverberated across the U.S. It wasn’t because Americans want to be mean to third-world immigrants. In fact, there is no other place in the world where the people are more accommodating. However, for a long time, third-world immigrants have openly decided they are no longer holding up their end of the bargain made at their time of entry. (RELATED: Ilhan Omar Attempts To Paint Alleged Perpetrators Of $1,000,000,000 Fraud Scheme Into Victims)
It used to be an understood reality that if you entered the U.S. legally with the expectation that you would become a citizen and reap the benefits that come along with being an American, your allegiances must shift from your home country to the U.S. Additionally, you must work to further the U.S. socially, economically, and otherwise.
The Somali fraud case isn’t just an ironic situation. It’s the result of third-world immigrants shamelessly displaying loyalty to their corrupt and failed home states while guilting Americans into endless generosity.
The Somali thing should remind us what ‘nation of immigrants’ is supposed to mean (if we are even going to use the dumb term).
It means people coming here, contributing and building.
It doesn’t mean coming here, going on welfare, using social services, and scamming the natives.
— FischerKing (@FischerKing64) December 3, 2025
“Different cultures lead to different outcomes,” Chris Ruffo wrote in the City Journal. “In the absence of strong assimilation pressures, the fraud networks aren’t so surprising; they reflect the extension of Somali institutional norms into a new environment with weak enforcement and poorly designed incentives.”
The left has such a hard time understanding this because their suicidal empathy requires that they embrace the fraudsters and denounce their fellow citizens. So when our president rightly states that it’s time they go back to where they came from, they fall in line, dancing alongside the men and women who harmed them. They can’t see that condemning fraud in this case isn’t anti-Somali; it’s pro-American.
Our government not only has the right but also the responsibility to recognize when immigrants fail to assimilate, and to protect and enforce justice against all groups that actively harm Americans.
Is it acceptable to be America First? The scandal unwittingly answers this with a resounding “yes.”
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