Somali-Americans: a fraud scandal draws Trump’s fire

America is “finally awakening to an ongoing scandal of massive proportions”, said National Review. Prosecutors are investigating a mass of Covid fraud schemes in Minnesota, which has led to 86 people, mostly Somali-Americans, being charged with stealing over $1 billion in public funds.

To take advantage of the state’s generous welfare policies, rings of fraudsters based in and around Minneapolis’s tightly knit Somali diaspora created fake schemes purportedly aiding groups such as autistic children and the homeless.

‘Culture of criminality’

When the US opened its doors to refugees from the African nation’s civil war in the 1990s, sadly it also “imported an element of Somalia’s culture of criminality”. This scandal should make us think hard about “our national immigration policy”. This reckoning was overdue, said Jason L. Riley in The Wall Street Journal. Democrat state officials had long turned a blind eye to the fraud for fear of being accused of racism or alienating Minnesota’s 80,000 Somalis, an important voting bloc.

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The problem certainly needs tackling, said Patricia Lopez on Bloomberg, but the response of the Trump administration has been predictably disproportionate. Swarms of federal agents are descending on Minneapolis to target Somalis specifically. Trump has blamed Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, calling him “retarded” – and describing Somali migrants as “garbage” who “contribute nothing”. He should stop “the hateful attacks” and “let the agencies do their work” of prosecuting individual criminals.

Proud bigot

Trump’s attacks on the Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar have been particularly reprehensible, said Ana Radelat on MinnPost. She came to the US as a child refugee from Somalia and became a citizen more than 25 years ago. “I love this Ilhan Omar, whatever the hell her name is,” he told a crowd last week. “With the little turban... She comes in, does nothing but bitch... We gotta get her the hell out.” The crowd chanted “Send her back!”. Trump also revived the long-debunked myth that Omar married her brother to get US citizenship.

With his ratings in freefall, Trump seems to believe that such “gutter racism” can shore up his position, said Adam Serwer in The Atlantic. His targeting of Somalian people echoes his previous attacks on Haitian migrants. It’s America’s shame that a proud bigot like Trump is president, and that he pays “so low a political price” for his expressions of hatred.