somali refugees
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target // haiti?
SEE JOK
SEE RENEE GOOD MINNE
ALSO LEWISTON MAINE?
TRIPLE THREAT BC BLACK, FOREIGN AND MUSLIM? WELFARE QUEEN FRAUD BS?
NICK SHIRLY TUBER BS
FOSTER BENZ? MOFO
note star trib is legit
NOTE WHITE FUNDER TRAFFICKER MOVIE MEDICARE FRAUD OK SOUND OF FREEDOM
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GUK 10 26
Ilhan Omar says she will not be silenced after federal agents raid her home
Trump and key allies have accused Omar of immigration fraud, and have called to expel her from the country
Matt Shuham
Mon 12 Oct 2026
Federal agents searched Representative Ilhan Omar’s home on Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, according to the Department of Justice and reports in the Associated Press and Fox News.
In a social media post later on Monday, Omar criticized the raid as an attempt by the Trump administration “to target political enemies and weaponize law enforcement” and said she would “not be silenced”.
A video posted by Fox showed what appeared to be law enforcement in HSI jackets at what Fox News said was Omar’s Washington DC residence.
“Today in the Washington DC area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice. This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” a DoJ spokesperson said.
It was unclear what the nature of the warrant was. Omar’s office did not respond to a request for comment, and the White House and Department of Homeland Security referred comment to DoJ. Citing two unnamed sources “close to the investigation”, Fox News reported that the search was related to a criminal fraud investigation concerning Omar’s immigration paperwork, which her late father filled out when she was a child.
HSI agents outside the residence of Representative Ilhan Omar in Washington DC on Monday. Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters
Donald Trump and key allies have accused Omar of fraud related to her family’s immigration history, fantasizing openly about denaturalizing her and expelling her from the country.
The congresswoman has consistently denied the accusations, though Trump has repeatedly made them national news with gratuitous attacks against Omar, who along with Representative Rashida Tlaib became the United States’s first Muslim congresswoman in 2019.
But even amid a presidency known for political and legal retribution against his critics, the search of Omar’s DC home just three weeks before a crucial midterm election day will surely lead to new accusations that Trump was using the government for his own political ends.
Administration officials, and the president himself, have long hinted at a federal investigation into Omar. “Let’s see what happens,” Trump said at a rally on Saturday after attacking Omar by name, adding that Vice-President JD Vance “and our people are looking at it very strongly”.
It was just the latest in months of talk about investigating Omar. Trump in December accused her of having “married her brother” and said she “should be thrown the hell out of our country”, a reference to a years-old but unsubstantiated claim that Omar sought to help her ex-husband – who they allege is really her brother – obtain immigration papers via a sham marriage.
Days later, his “border czar” Tom Homan said: “We’re pulling the records now,” referring to Omar, and said a fraud investigator in Homeland Security Investigations, the ICE division that historically has been tasked with investigative work, would look into the matter.
Homeland security officers carry boxes from the Washington residence of Ilhan Omar as yellow cordon tape can be seen in the distance. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
In March , Vance told rightwing media personality Benny Johnson: “We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud” and that he had recently spoken to top Trump aide Stephen Miller about “what the remedies are”. Homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin told Johnson last month that there was an ongoing investigation and “something’s going to happen”.
“We know that she married her brother to try to bring him into the United States,” Mullin said. “We know he lives now in London. We feel that there may be more to this, the whole family migration, and possibly some illegal activity for them to come to the United States to begin with. But all of us, we’re investigating.”
Soon after, Homan said he could not “comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.
“We’ll let HSI, Homeland Security Investigations continue to do their investigation,” he added.
Omar’s social media post after the raid on Monday said: “I’m OK. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”
The congresswoman also said Trump had spent years targeting her “with baseless lies and smear campaigns”.
“This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”
Omar has for years denied unsubstantiated rumors from Trump and others about herself and her family, including the accusation that her ex-husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, is in fact her brother, and that the marriage was part of an effort to earn him immigration status. Marriage fraud is a felony, though it has a five-year statute of limitations. Omar and Elmi formally divorced in 2017 after separating in a religious divorce years earlier.
Officers during an investigation at the residence of Ilhan Omar on Monday. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP
The New York Post last month also quoted an unnamed “top immigration official” who said “the Trump administration could initiate a denaturalization process” against Omar if there is sufficient evidence that she or her father lied on immigration applications. The story noted accusations that Omar was older than her recorded age of 17 when she was naturalized, which could be relevant because she received citizenship via her parents. The report also raised questions about Omar’s father, who reportedly claimed to be an educator, though his obituary later described a military career.
As the most prominent Somali-American in the United States, Omar has faced years of racist attacks from the president and his supporters.
At his rally Saturday, Trump said of Somalia: “All they have is crime and squalor” and suggested that “our” US constitution did not belong to Omar. Two days earlier, he had written that Minnesota “is being taken over by Somali Immigrants”, even though the vast majority of Somali-Americans in the state are US citizens.
“The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing,” Trump wrote, urging supporters in the state to “fight back!”
Somali-Americans, especially, have borne relentless insult from the White House in Trump’s second term. In December, the president referred to them as “garbage” who “come from hell, and they complain, and do nothing but bitch”.
“Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,” he added.
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mma reboot?
Jack Posobiec: “They're taking white areas, and they're importing Muslims and Somalians and Africans into them”
09/02/26
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MMA
5 26
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Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com › conventional-wisdom-somali-minnesota-welfare-fraud-trump-walz-11133825
Conventional Wisdom: The Somali Minnesota welfare fraud edition
Dec 1, 2025Minnesota Star Tribune ⬇ The hometown newspaper has covered the fraud investigation sporadically and the Somali community consistently, but barely ever put the two stories together.
RealClearPolitics
Media Coverage of Somali Fraud Is Stupid, Lazy, and False
Dec 8, 2025Yesterday the Star Tribune published the story "Trump claims Minnesota lost billions to fraud. The evidence to date isn't close." The story runs under the byline of Emmy Martin and Jeffrey ...
MSN
Here's what to know about Minnesota's fraud crisis - MSN
President Donald Trump's recent comments about fraud in Minnesota has given the issue national attention. But the Minnesota Star Tribune has covered the issue for more than a decade ...
- Generate answer for star tribune somali
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Trump confronted with sign saying 'Black people aren't apes' at State of the Union - Alternet.org
al g taken out; minn brain injury arrested for standing silently DN 2 25 26
omar tlaib
sotu 2 26 an
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City Journal
https://www.city-journal.org › article › fraud-minnesota-somali-feeding-our-future
Minnesota's Somali Fraud Problem - city-journal.org
Nov 26, 2025Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo are to be congratulated for the attention they have drawn to the issue of fraud committed by a large cast of Minnesota Somalis. I have devoted attention to the issue over the past eight years, including in a 2018 article I wrote for City Journal headlined "Mogadishu, Minnesota," and in daily coverage of the two federal trials conducted so far in the massive ...
Minnesota’s Somali Fraud Problem
It’s about greed, not terrorism.
/ Eye on the News / Politics and Law, States and Cities
Nov 26 2025/ Share
Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo are to be congratulated for the attention they have drawn to the issue of fraud committed by a large cast of Minnesota Somalis. I have devoted attention to the issue over the past eight years, including in a 2018 article I wrote for City Journal headlined “Mogadishu, Minnesota,” and in daily coverage of the two federal trials conducted so far in the massive Feeding Our Future fraud for Power Line.
The Feeding Our Future case involves some $300 million obtained by blatant, gross, and widespread fraud featuring a cast of mostly Somali perpetrators. Driven manifestly by greed, they wanted to get rich fast. The motive of greed permeates these cases.
When the second trial resulted in guilty verdicts that nailed the white ringleader of the fraud and one of her main co-conspirators, I sought to bring the Feeding Our Future case to the attention of a national audience in a Washington Free Beacon a**rticle, “From Feeding the Kids to Fleecing the Government: Inside the Country’s Largest Covid Fraud.” What I sought to do in that piece Thorpe and Rufo have done a thousand times over.
President Trump has responded by announcing termination of the Temporary Protected Status of Somali immigrants in the U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed his disgust. Senator Cruz has devoted a podcast to the subject. Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth has called on United States Attorney Daniel Rosen to investigate.
I would like to add context to the Thorpe–Rufo story based on my coverage of the Feeding Our Future case and emerging fraud cases related to it. Indictments in the Feeding Our Future case have now been brought against 78 defendants. The newest of the 78 cases was charged on November 24. The 78 indictments have resulted in seven guilty verdicts, two acquittals, 50 guilty pleas, and five fugitives, with one deceased defendant. Thirteen unresolved cases await trial.
Investigation of the cases commenced in April 2021 when a frustrated Minnesota Department of Education bureaucrat tipped the FBI to her suspicions that the federal child nutrition program was being defrauded by the Feeding Our Future nonprofit and the many “sites” it sponsored. FBI forensic accountant Pauline Roase followed up in the ensuing months by compiling relevant bank records and charting the flow of funds. FBI special agents Jared Kary and Travis Wilmer investigated in the field. On January 20, 2022, the investigation “went overt” when federal authorities raided sites around the Twin Cities in the largest such operation ever conducted in Minnesota. The following September, then-United States Attorney Andrew Luger announced the first set of indictments handed up in the case with a promise of more to come.
Joe Thompson is now the First Assistant United States Attorney in the Minnesota Office of the United States Attorney. Thompson leads a team of three other prosecutors in these cases. A Minnesota native, he formerly served as Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting public corruption cases in Chicago. With 16 years of experience, he has investigated and prosecuted hundreds of cases. Having watched him in action in the two Feeding Our Future trials, I regard him as one of the best and smartest trial attorneys I’ve ever seen.
Thompson has left no stone unturned in the prosecution of these cases. Homes have been searched. Phones and documents have been seized. Witnesses have been interviewed. The FBI forensic accountants have traced the millions of dollars stolen to the extent possible. Their reconstruction of the flow of funds has been introduced into evidence that is now public record. These records show that the defendants sent millions of dollars to Kenya and China. They also sent money to Somalia—mostly in cash.
Al-Shabaab controls large portions of Somalia and collects a mafia-style street tax on all financial transactions in areas under its control. In this way, some of the Feeding Our Future and other fraud proceeds likely ended up in the hands of Al-Shabaab. That, of course, is outrageous, though there is no evidence that the perpetrators in these cases intentionally directed money to Al-Shabaab or any other terrorist organization. The defendants were not looking to fund terrorism but to enrich themselves and fund their extravagant lifestyles.
The Feeding Our Future case has opened a window on a panoply of scams committed on Minnesota Medicaid programs (so-called “waivered” programs) that appear to have been designed to facilitate fraud: Housing Stabilization Services, Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention autism services, and 12 other such programs that Governor Tim Walz has now temporarily suspended for review. Thompson himself has asserted repeatedly that the frauds altogether will amount to “BILLIONS” (as President Trump put it).
Somali community, religious, and political leaders have largely maintained their silence in the face of the fraud committed in vast disproportion by their community. State Senator and former mayoral candidate Omar Fateh is a good example. He formulaically condemned the fraud when he returned a campaign contribution from one of the perpetrators, but that’s it.
This is the larger point. Feeding Our Future and the follow-on cases represent a phenomenon that may be even more damaging than incidental support for a foreign terrorist organization: the element of pervasive public corruption.
All these frauds have occurred under the auspices of the administration of Governor Tim Walz. He has denied fault and deflected blame, going so far as to attribute responsibility to a local judge who handled a case brought by Feeding Our Future challenging the Department of Education’s temporary refusal to process (i.e., approve or deny) “site” applications that it had submitted. The judge issued an unusual public statement demonstrating the falsity of Walz’s attribution of blame.
Minnesota citizens want to know how and why this vast wasteland of scandal has come to be. This is how Thompson put it to the Star Tribune this past July: “This fraud crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the result of widespread failure across nearly every level of leadership in Minnesota: Politicians who turned a blind eye. Agencies that failed to act. Prosecutors and law enforcement who didn’t push hard enough. Reporters who ignored the story. Community leaders who stayed silent. And a public that wanted to believe it couldn’t happen here. This isn’t just a few criminals exploiting the system, this is a system that’s been begging to be exploited. We left the door wide open, and now our state has been ransacked. If we keep ignoring the truth, we’re going to lose something far more important than money. We’re going to lose the Minnesota we know and love.”
Doubt and cynicism are the order of the day in a state that once prided itself on good government.
*Scott W. Johnson is a retired Minneapolis attorney and contributor toPower Line.
Photo by Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via Getty Images
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christopherrufo.com
https://christopherrufo.com › p › its-not-racist-to-notice-somali-fraud
It's Not "Racist" to Notice Somali Fraud - christopherrufo.com
Nov 28, 2025Last week, my colleague Ryan Thorpe and I broke a story about widespread fraud committed by Somalis in Minnesota. Members of the state's Somali community allegedly participated in complex schemes related to autism services, food programs, and housing, which prosecutors estimate have stolen billions of taxpayer dollars.
TheBlaze
Exclusive: Bessent tells Rufo — 'When the bear trap snaps,' Minnesota ...
Jan 12, 2026Christopher Rufo's bombshell reporting on Minnesota's Somali fraud schemes ignited a massive federal crackdown — now, in this exclusive interview, he sits down with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for the latest on the escalating investigations.
City Journal
https://www.city-journal.org › article › fraud-minnesota-somali-feeding-our-future
Minnesota's Somali Fraud Problem - city-journal.org
Nov 26, 2025Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo are to be congratulated for the attention they have drawn to the issue of fraud committed by a large cast of Minnesota Somalis. I have devoted attention to the issue over the past eight years, including in a 2018 article I wrote for City Journal headlined "Mogadishu, Minnesota," and in daily coverage of the two federal trials conducted so far in the massive ...
The Daily Caller
Somalis Reportedly Scamming Minnesota Blind - The Daily Caller
Nov 20, 2025Thorpe and Rufo cite an anonymous source who alleges, "The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer." City Journal cites reports that about 40% of households in Somalia receive remittances from abroad, totaling $1.7 billion in remittances in 2023.
Imprimis
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu › learning-from-minnesotas-somali-fraud-scandal
Learning From Minnesota's Somali Fraud Scandal - Imprimis
The massive public programs fraud committed almost entirely by Somali perpetrators has recently exploded in the national news. The controversy is centered in Minnesota, where the amount of money bilked from American taxpayers could prove to be as high as $9 billion. But the scandal is spreading to other states as well. When Ryan Thorpe and Chris Rufo published an article in the November 2025 ...
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WORLD
wng Sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth
https://wng.org › roundups › whats-the-deal-with-somali-fraud-in-minnesota-1764976022
What's up with the Somali fraud in Minnesota? | WORLD
Dec 8, 2025Somalis in Minnesota had stolen billions of dollars, the president claimed, adding that such people shouldn't even be in the United States. Earlier in November, Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe at City Journal released a report with the provocative headline "The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer."
what’s up with the Somali fraud in Minnesota?
National attention turns to a problem the state has reckoned with for years
The day before Thanksgiving, President Donald Trump declared that “hundreds of thousands of Somalians” were “ripping off our country.” Somalis in Minnesota had stolen billions of dollars, the president claimed, adding that such people shouldn’t even be in the United States.
Earlier in November, Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe at City Journal released a report with the provocative headline “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer.” The article asserted that some of the funds that individuals of Somali ethnicity had defrauded from Minnesota’s welfare programs wound up thousands of miles away in the hands of an al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia.
And on Nov. 29, an X account claiming to represent nearly 500 employees of Minnesota’s government issued a statement asserting that large-scale fraud had taken place in the state and that Gov. Tim Walz was responsible for letting it happen.
The remarks by Trump and others about fraud in Minnesota have brought attention to an issue locals have raised concerns about for years.
What are the fraud claims all about?
The U.S. Department of Justice last month announced that it had charged the 78th person in connection with a scheme to defraud a COVID-era Minnesota welfare program called Feeding Our Future. The DOJ alleged that the latest defendant, Abdirashid Bixi Dool, had received more than $1 million in funds from the state of Minnesota to run a food assistance program for children. But Dool and a co-conspirator spent most of that money on enriching themselves and their families, the DOJ said. Roughly $250 million was stolen from the program altogether, Minnesota’s Legislative Auditor reported in 2024.
“It’s the simplest scam you can possibly conceive of. The fraudsters were just sending invoices and based on services that were not rendered, products that were not delivered, and they were collecting money from the state, pretty much no questions asked,” said Bill Glahn, a senior fellow at Center of the American Experiment, a Minnesota-based think tank. “They were basically delivering meals to children—poor, low-income children—but when they sent the invoices, they were adding an extra zero so they would serve one meal and they would bill for 10.”
But Feeding Our Future was only one of the Minnesota programs that have seen a fraud problem in the past few years.
The Department of Justice in September alleged that, as part of a $14 million enterprise milking a Minnesota autism assistance program, fraud ringleaders paid kickbacks to Somali parents in return for permission to register their children as autistic. The leaders then received payments from the state for supposedly providing therapy services. Some of the parents left the defendant’s fraud program so they could register their children with other fraudulent autism assistance programs that offered higher kickbacks, the DOJ claimed.
And earlier this year, federal prosecutors charged eight individuals with defrauding a housing stabilization program in the state. The defendants made millions of dollars off the program, causing the program’s budget to balloon significantly.
Were Somalis mainly responsible for the fraud?
Yes. Nearly all of the defendants in the Feeding Our Future and other welfare fraud schemes were Somali, according to Kayseh Magan, a Somali-American former investigator in the Medicaid Fraud Division of the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, and according to prosecutors.
Nearly 80,000 people of Somali descent live in Minnesota, and most of them are naturalized U.S. citizens. But Glahn cautions against painting with too broad of a brush: He points out that even if the number of Somali fraudsters in question substantially exceeds the current number of arrests, it would still represent only a tiny fraction of the state’s overall Somali American population.
“Were the majority of the people involved in these fraud scams of Somali ethnicity? Yes,” noted Glahn. “Those are fairly, I would think at this point, non-controversial facts. But people try to turn them into value judgments, you know? We have a Somali fraud problem in Minnesota. Do we have a Somali problem in Minnesota? I don’t think so.”
So why is this fraud centered on Somalis?
Magan, writing for the Minnesota Reformer, discussed how Somali culture in many ways can serve as a force multiplier for fraudsters.
Many Somalis are the sole providers for relatives back in Somalia who rely on remittances from their American-earned dollars, Magan explained. But the Minnesota bureaucracy provided an easy way to fraudulently boost how much they sent home. “The systems intended to catch fraud are mostly designed to root out recipient fraud,” Magan wrote. “It is exceedingly difficult to guard against providers who collude with recipients, which is the type of fraud most pervasive in the Somali community.”
And providers can easily collude with recipients because Somalis in Minnesota—like many immigration communities—are tight-knit and trusting.
“This creates a vast opening for fraudsters,” Magan wrote. “The conduit for fraud in publicly funded programs are the recipients, who require services. Somali recipients face language and cultural barriers. In an unfamiliar country, they lean heavily on other Somalis. Somali providers are in a position of trust, and some have taken advantage.”
Has money really gone to terrorists?
The Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank focusing on international policy, estimated earlier this year that in 2023, Somalis around the world sent back home approximately $1.7 billion.
“Probably the vast majority of what came from Minnesota was from legitimate people sending money back home that they earned,” Glahn said. But some of the money flowing from Minnesota to Somalia did come from fraud, he added.
When Somalis in Minnesota send money back to Somalia, the terror group al-Shabaab—which is the default authority in parts of the country—takes a cut.
“There’s no evidence that these fraudsters were trying to support al-Shabaab,” Glahn said. “But these folks are fairly sophisticated adults and you know they were probably aware on the front end, ‘I’m going to send money back to my relatives, and yeah, some of it’s going to get siphoned off along the way.’”
Magan, writing again for the Minnesota Reformer, argued the allegations about fraud money making its way into the war chests of terrorists are overblown.
“The story, especially in all its sensationalism, appears to be little more than an effort by the right-wing propaganda machine to whip up hatred against Somali Americans,” he wrote. “If federal prosecutors had any inkling that the ill-gotten gains were going to a terrorist organization, don’t you think they’d have brought charges?”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week that he’d ordered an investigation into whether Minnesotans’ taxpayer dollars got into the hands of terrorists. He promised the agency would share its findings as the investigation continued.
Has the government of Minnesota turned a blind eye to this?
Minnesota’s Legislative Auditor Judy Randall published a report last year that found the Minnesota Department of Education ignored early warning signs of fraud in the Feeding Our Future program.
The program faced racial discrimination lawsuits when the department threatened to withhold funding from Somali-run programs that seemed likely to have a fraud problem. The department then chose to fund the programs rather than face the public relations fiasco that the lawsuits threatened. Randall’s report noted that the department also failed to provide proper oversight of the program.
But an X account claiming to represent the voices of former Minnesota government employees said last month that many government workers did know about the fraud, raised concerns about it, and were told to keep quiet. The social media post, which has been viewed about 40 million times, blamed Walz’s administration for shutting down reports about widespread fraud.
Walz’s office did not respond to WORLD’s request for comment about those accusations. In September, Walz issued an executive order that his office claimed ordered state government agencies to take stronger action against fraud.
How can Minnesota prevent similar instances of fraud in the future?
State agencies need to do a better job of talking to each other about when they notice fraud, Glahn said. If an individual commits fraud while serving as a provider for one state program, the government should prevent that person from serving as a provider in all other programs run by the state, he said. The state also needs to beef up its internal auditing at the state government level, he said.
State lawmakers proposed a bill during the Minnesota Legislature’s last session that would have created a state inspector general’s office to conduct enterprise-wide audits of multiple agencies to better prevent multi-agency fraud.
Minnesota senators passed it by a vote of 60-7 in May. “You almost never get anything through our evenly divided state Senate on a lopsided vote like that,” Glahn said.
But the bill didn’t make it to the floor of the House.
“Maybe it’ll come back next year with all this attention to fraud,” Glahn said.
Josh is a WORLD reporter and a graduate of the World Journalism Institute and Patrick Henry College. He resides with his wife in Washington, D.C.
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[
manhattan.institute
https://manhattan.institute › article › somalis-in-minnesota-can-cultures-adapt
Somalis in Minnesota: Can Cultures Adapt? - manhattan.institute
Dec 4, 2025The Somali Fraud Story Busts Liberal Myths By Christopher F. Rufo | City Journal "Though this story was particular to Minnesota, disruptive mass immigration is a national phenomenon. During the four years of the Biden administration, America imported millions of foreigners, many illegally.
MSN
How has the Somali community shaped the workforce in Minnesota? - MSN
The Somali community has been a focus of a large immigration crackdown in Minnesota. WCCO spoke with an economist to analyze the group's specific contributions to the state's workforce.
Star Tribune
Trump calls Somali community 'pirates,' prompting shouts from Rep ...
TodayThe president said members of the Somali community have stolen $19 billion. Minnesota prosecutors have put estimates at half that.
CBS News
What to know about Minnesota fraud allegations, as Trump ... - CBS News
Dec 5, 2025President Trump has recently attacked Gov. Tim Walz over the fraud cases, calling Minnesota a "hub of fraudulent money laundering activity" and lashing out against the state's Somali community.
Generate answer for rufo somali minnesota
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February 12, 2026, edition of Newsmax's *Carl Higbie Frontline
CARL HIGBIE (HOST): So the fact of the matter is, this guy, by all available information, Keith Ellison, stifled the investigation until it couldn't be kept quiet. And he said, oh, I cooperated with the investigation. No, you did not. Here, this is from the House's own -- Democrat House, their own report said, look at those two middle ones.
Minnesota Department of Education received 30 complaints involving Feeding Our Future between June 2018 and December 2021. Minnesota Department of Education did not investigate some complaints about Feeding our Future despite their frequency or serious -- this is from 2018 and only after whistleblowers started going public three years later, and the FBI got involved and the IRS got involved. Only then did Keith Ellison's attorney general's office even lift a single finger, just so they wouldn't look like they're trying to cover it up. This case was entirely, entirely driven by whistleblowers, and then it was prosecuted by U.S. federal attorneys, not local attorneys. So don't sit there and lie through your teeth about how you tried to stop your law -- we didn't like this fraud. But here's the part that should probably land him in handcuffs, and I hope this committee refers him for criminal charges.
...
HIGBIE: Dead to rights. Ellison is sitting there denying this whole conversation that he had. But it's on tape. This is worse than Bill Clinton debating what the meaning of the word is is. I mean, is this guy stupid? And Hawley just kept dropping transcripts.
...
HIGBIE: He's just reading it. What did Ellison think was going to happen here? I mean, I've seen enough, and apparently so has the good senator.
...
HIGBIE: Yup. Let's do that. In fact, let's bury this guy under the jail. I mean, this is a layup for the DOJ. Josh Hawley just laid everything out. This is what I want, OK? This is what I voted for. All these people in jail. I think this is what basically everybody who voted for Trump wanted. Arrest the people who steal our money and break our laws and think they're above it. Pam Bondi could totally redeem herself from yesterday. I would be her number one cheerleader if she went out there and indicted him tomorrow. You have a politician soliciting and being offered a donation on tape in exchange for dropping a fraud investigation that is the sole responsibility of his office. That turned out to be over $250 million stolen from his people. Not to mention that he let another $9 billion just get lit on fire and thrown out the door. Some of which ended up in Mogadishu. Lock him up.
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4. "Somalia isn't even a country."
Trump lit into the embattled nation of Somalia, and also into one of its former residents who now serves as a legislator for the state of Minnesota.
“It's not a country. They don't have government. They don't have anything. I always hate to see this (Rep.) Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), she comes from Somalia, a backward country, probably the worst country. They say it's the worst country in the world. If it's a country, I don't even think it's a country. There's no organization, no anything. They don't have police. They don't have military; they don't have anything. They just have people running around killing each other and trying to pirate ships. But she'll come here. And then she wants to tell us how to run our country. The Constitution says that I am entitled to this. I can't stand her,” Trump said, adding that he “terminated all taxpayer funding” to her state.
Trump laying 'siege' to Minneapolis with 'military occupation': Minnesota paper
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[## LAURA INGRAHAM LABELS MINNESOTANS PROTESTING ICE “INSURGENTS”
01/12/26 8:17 PM EST](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/laura-ingraham-labels-minnesotans-protesting-ice-insurgents)
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MMA
Daily Wire's Matt Walsh: “There's a lot of inbreeding in Somalia, which affects IQ”
02/24/25
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https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/james-okeefes-videos-attacking-mail-voting-minnesota-fall-apart-after
no lnx many pix
James O’Keefe’s videos attacking mail-in voting in Minnesota fall apart after being spread by right-wing media
WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD
PUBLISHED 10/07/20
Serial political fraudster James O’Keefe, founder of the right-wing group Project Veritas, is now facing the collapse of yet another of his purported “sting” videos — this time, involving accusations of ballot fraud and bribery in Minneapolis. But the fraud and bribery might really be coming from Project Veritas itself.
About Project Veritas
Project Veritas’ basic modus operandi is to secretly record videos, then deceptively edit and release them in order to create a “gotcha” moment for right-wing media. These attempts often backfire. [Business Insider, 11/28/17]
Project Veritas has a long history of distorting videos, claiming they show things they do not actually show, and deceptively editing secret recordings to make the subjects look worse. Project Veritas also has a history of targeting low-level volunteers and staff, then attributing uninformed statements to organizers higher up in authority. [Media Matters, 10/6/14]
Project Veritas refuses to ever release unedited videos, only clips. “We treat our raw video as the same as a reporter’s notebook and we do not release it,” said Project Veritas spokesman Neil McCabe. [Snopes, 10/01/20]
Another O’Keefe stunt from earlier this year involved supposed inflation of coronavirus death statistics in New York City. Despite containing no evidence or meaningful information, it was widely picked up in right-wing media. [Media Matters, 4/30/20]
Project Veritas’ latest scheme is a project codenamed “Diamond Dog” meant to discredit mail-in voting. The intention of this scheme is “literally to get Trump reelected,” as a source said. [The New Republic, 8/3/20]
Project Veritas’ latest claims
O’Keefe’s first new video claimed to implicate an “Ilhan Omar connected Ballot Harvester.” The video featured Snapchat videos by a man referred to as “Liban Mohamed” with absentee ballots collected in his car. Though he is described as “connected” to Omar, he identifies himself in an audio clip as working for his brother Jamal Osman’s successful campaign in an August special election for the Minneapolis city council. [YouTube, 9/27/20]
A second video claimed to show an exchange of $200 for a single vote. Both videos relied heavily on the statements of a community “insider” named Omar Jamal. O’Keefe claimed that “our sources inside the Somali community here allege that the architect of this pay-for-votes scheme is none other than U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.” [YouTube, 9/28/20]
The new video releases appear to have been promoted beforehand with Trump campaign officials. The latest Project Veritas release was teased on Twitter by Donald Trump Jr. and businessman Mike Lindell, Trump’s Minnesota campaign chair. [Election Integrity Partnership, 9/29/20]
The videos’ release may have been moved ahead of schedule to distract from The New York Times’ reporting on Trump’s personal finances.“Mr. O’Keefe’s promotional posts had said the video would be released on Monday, but Project Veritas released it on Sunday instead, a few hours after the publication of The Times’s investigation. … Many of the same accounts that had shared promotional tweets also shared the video as soon as it was released, moving it quickly into Twitter’s trending topics alongside The Times’s tax investigation.” [The New York Times, 9/29/20]
Fact-checking Project Veritas’ claims
The collection of absentee ballots by a designated person who delivers them to be counted, which right-wing media refer to as “ballot harvesting,” was legal in Minnesota for a period this summer, during which the man in the Snapchat videos claims to have been working. The Minnesota Supreme Court reinstated a limit on collecting ballots in early September, after the state’s primary election had already taken place. [Star Tribune, 9/9/20]
Project Veritas has provided no direct evidence for any vote-buying. Any such allegations in the video “come solely from unnamed people who speak with Project Veritas operatives in the video and whose faces are not shown.” [The New York Times, 9/29/20]
Now, “Liban Mohamed” has come forward — though his name is actually Liban Osman, and he was not working for Rep. Ilhan Omar’s campaign. Osman also said that Project Veritas misleadingly edited together two different videos he had taken a month apart from each other, as he boasted of his brother’s campaign and its successful fundraising against a wide field of 11 opponents. [KMSP-TV, 10/5/20]
An Omar campaign spokesperson confirmed that Liban Osman had never worked or volunteered for Omar’s campaign. [Snopes, 10/1/20]
Liban Osman says Project Veritas’ main “insider” source, Omar Jamal, had offered him a bribe of $10,000, to be paid by Project Veritas. Osman says Jamal wanted him to say he was harvesting ballots for Rep. Ilhan Omar, and claims Jamal said to him, “They [Project Veritas] are not after you or your brother. Why are you defending her?” Project Veritas is denying the accusation. [KMSP-TV, 10/5/20]
Video file
CitationVia Fox 9, KMSP-TV, October 5, 2020
KMSP-TV in Minneapolis reports that the video showing an exchange of $200 was actually Project Veritas' source, Omar Jamal. “But two sources tell the FOX 9 Investigators the man is a relative of Omar Jamal, and that during the encounter outside Cedar Riverside Apartments, it is Jamal who is handing the man $200 which was intended for the family of a sick relative in Somalia.” [KMSP-TV, 10/5/20]
Project Veritas’ source Omar Jamal
Omar Jamal claims to be the chairman of “Somali Watchdog Group,” but the organization does not appear to exist. It is also unclear if Jamal is at all associated with the Ramsey County Sheriff Department, which he claims to be working for in the Project Veritas video. “Further, according to records obtained by the Daily Dot, Jamal isn’t currently a U.N. Permanent Representative to the Federal Republic of Somalia, which he has also claimed on LinkedIn.”[Daily Dot, 10/1/20]
Jamal has also admitted the video purportedly showing an exchange of $200 for a ballot was a staged dramatization. “I think that incident was one that was depicting how [cash-for-ballot] works,” he said in an interview with a Somali American TV program. He also admitted that he had never met anyone who had received cash in exchange for a vote. [Sahan Journal, 10/1/20]
Project Veritas is now promoting a GoFundMe for their “#BallotHarvesting Insider Omar Jamal,” with a goal of $500,000. The money is allegedly to support efforts to “further expose potentially more election fraud come November.” At time of writing, it has raised just over $31,000. [Twitter, 9/28/20]
Right-wing media and President Donald Trump spread the latest apparent hoax from Project Veritas
On September 28, O’Keefe appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, to promote the video. [Fox News, Hannity, 9/28/20]
Video file
CitationFrom the September 28, 2020, edition of Fox News' Hannity
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones hosted O’Keefe to talk about the story. [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 9/28/20]
Video file
CitationFrom the September 28, 2020, edition of InfoWars’ The Alex Jones Show
O’Keefe was interviewed by former National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch. [YouTube, 9/28/20]
O’Keefe also appeared on The Larry Elder Show. [YouTube, 9/29/20]
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon hosted Project Veritas’ Neil McCabe to discuss the story on his War Room: Pandemic podcast. [Twitter, 9/28/20]
Far-right blogger and white nationalist sympathizer Michelle Malkin hosted state Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R-MN) to discuss the Project Veritas video. [YouTube, 9/28/20]
Glenn Beck promoted the video on his Blaze TV show in a segment titled “Vote Buying In Ilhan Omar’s District?” [YouTube, 9/28/20]
screen grab
[New York Post, 9/27/20]
screen grab
[Breitbart, 9/27/20]
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[National Review, 9/27/20]
screen grab
[The Gateway Pundit, 9/27/20]
screen grab
[The Post Millennial, 9/27/20]
screen grab
[RedState, 9/28/20]
screen grab
[The Epoch Times, 9/28/20]
screen grab
[CBN, 9/28/20]
screen grab
[The Washington Times, 9/28/20]
Right-wing YouTuber Tim Pool: “Trump Proven RIGHT After Video Shows Voter Fraud By Ilhan Omar Supporters, He DEMANDS Investigation” [YouTube, 9/28/20]“Trump Proven RIGHT After Video Shows Voter Fraud By Ilhan Omar Supporters, He DEMANDS Investigation” [YouTube, 9/28/20]
Pro-Trump cartoonist Scott Adams: “Trump Taxes, Mail-In Ballot Fraud Scandal, How Trump Wins Without Trying” [YouTube, 9/28/20]
Trump amplified the claims at his campaign rally in Duluth, Minnesota. “And what about Omar? Where she gets caught [ballot] harvesting. What the hell is going on? I hope your U.S. attorney is involved,” Trump said, as the crowd chanted, “Lock her up.” [Vox, 10/1/20]
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), in a now-deleted tweet: “Project Veritas offers further evidence of the need to ban ballot harvesting. It's not a partisan issue. It's been abused to help both R & D candidates, including in North Carolina & California. Please help by telling your congressional rep to pass our bipartisan bill HR8285.” [Twitter, 9/28/20]
Gabbard posted a new tweet after the latest allegations broke about the videos:
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6 23
Climate Change and Conflict Are Wreaking Havoc in Somalia
Nick Turse
A historic drought, floods, and a widening war with al-Shabab have displaced more than a million people this year.
---
2020 accuse ilhan buying votes
only reliable things in the world are death, taxes, and James O'Keefe's videos falling apart under scrutiny.
O'Keefe's latest major video for Project Veritas was a video making wild claims about the Minnesota election of Rep. Ilhan Omar. The details aren't worth getting into, but the important thing is that, despite a big roll out that featured Sean Hannity, O'Keefe's claims have fallen apartas actual reporting has come out. But most of the actual reporting only occurred after the video racked up millions of views combined on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook -- and even now, there is no fact check appended to the videos at all. These companies have made big claims about protecting the election -- but seem to have no plan whatsoever for a proven charlatan like O'Keefe.
Also: Recall that the last we saw O'Keefe, he was wandering the streets of New York City, claiming that the coroners were lying about the death toll from COVID-19. Hannity loved that one too.
---
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https://www.foxnews.com › politics › somali-american-target-threats-maine-...
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1.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/how-rep-ilhan-omars-minnesota-district-became-the-terrorist-recruitment-capital-of-the-us-officials-highly-concerned
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ISISPublished February 16
How Minneapolis' Somali community became the terrorist recruitment capital of the US
Hollie McKayBy Hollie McKay | Fox News
ISIS militants cling to last square mile of land in eastern Syria
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country.
FBI stats show 45 Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined. And as of 2018, a dozen more had been arrested with the intention of leaving to support ISIS. Both numbers are far higher than those of alleged terrorist wannabes who left or attempted to leave the country from other areas in the country where Muslim refugees have been resettled.
In the case of the Somalis, it's no longer just the men. Early last year, a female was apprehended by authorities on charges of supporting providing material support to Al Qaeda and arson.
So what has made the area such a hotbed for such activity? And what has been Rep. Ilhan Omar's record in addressing the issue - either before she was elected, or since?
DOUG COLLINS: OMAR OFFERED AN 'OOPS', NOT A REALY APOLOGY
The answers matter because federal authorities say they remain "highly concerned" about the terrorist connection with the Minneapolis Somalis - even though al-Shabab is struggling against the Somali government, and the so-called ISIS “caliphate” has crumbled under a sustained U.S.-led military campaign.
“We are very conscious that there may still be fertile ground for that, and that is could re-start at any time," one federal official told Fox News. "Based on historical experience, we had (an uptick) in 2007 and 2008 going for al-Shabab, then a lull. Then, as ISIS came back, we saw a whole bunch of people no longer headed for Somalia. They were headed for Iraq and Syria. That really caught us off-guard, we didn’t see that coming. It didn’t make sense to us. We understood why kids were going back to Somalia, but going to Syria was another we issue.”
With by far the largest Somali American population in the United States - estimates of up to 100,000 - the insular ethnic community in Minnesota offers a rich recruiting ground. Investigators told Fox News that early on, al-Shabab recruiting was almost exclusively word-of-mouth. One family connection to a contact in the terrorist group would be pulled in as a recruit, in a process that was repeated as the ranks of the al-Shabab grew.
pix blk guys mask gun synched] Hundreds of newly trained al-Shabab fighters perform military exercises in the Lafofe area south of Mogadishu, in Somalia.
Hundreds of newly trained al-Shabab fighters perform military exercises in the Lafofe area south of Mogadishu, in Somalia. (The Associated Press)
But that chain seemingly changed when ISIS came on the scene around 2014. Personal connections still played a part, but it became much more about digesting online recruitment videos and turning to “alternative news sources,” which played into violence being committed against Muslims around the world.
“Recruitment takes place online as well as face-to-face radicalization, sometimes with promises of what appears to be legitimate opportunities. For al-Shabab, they focus mainly on the negative impact of US counterterrorism policies – like targeted assassinations and drone strikes that sometimes kill innocent civilians in Somalia – to attract recruits and sympathizers,” explained David Otto, director and counterterrorism program coordinator at Global Risk International. “They blame the failures of government on foreign intervention and link it to the reason why most Somalians have escaped home. The promise that al-Shabaab will restore a Sharia state and get rid of the government is somewhat attractive.”
BACK IN OMAR'S DISTRICT, POLICE DEAL WITH GANGS, RELATIONS WITH TIGHT-LIPPED SOMALI COMMUNITY
The first tide of jihadists left in 2007,under the banner of joining al-Shabab after neighboring Ethiopia invaded Somalia a year earlier, citing its own need to face the direct threat encroaching their borders from within that unstable country.
[pix Dozens of young men have been recruited from the Somali-majority Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis. Experts and authorities are urging the community to keep the issue at the forefront to prevent others from joining extremist groups abroad.
Since then, some 23 men from the Twin Citiesallegedly made it to the Horn of Africa, specifically to take up arms with al-Shabab. At least two became suicide bombers, and an estimated seven more are believed to have died on the battlefield.
"For over a decade, Islamist terror groups have been able to recruit from Minnesota. This is, in part, because Minnesota has a large Muslim population compared to other parts of the U.S,” saidRobin Simcox, a terrorism and national security expert at The Heritage Foundation. “However, it is also because there have been small segments of the Somali community there that have struggled to integrate into the U.S. Al-Shabaab and ISIS have exploited this – upon religious, political cultural and identity issues to offer a compelling alternative to Western democracy.”
Josh Lipowsky, Senior Research Analyst at the Counter Extremism Projectconcurred the immigrant community in Minnesota has proven to be ripe for targeting in recent years by specifically playing into the card of being something of an outsider and that “society has shunned them.”
Local authorities contend it has been challenging for them to penetrate the Somali-American community in Minneapolis, who remain a unique immigrant population that hasn't actively assimilated with the neighboring township. In the neighborhood of Cedar-Riverside, for example, it's possible to go about day-to-day business without ever interacting with a non-Somali.
Josh Lipowsky, Senior Research Analyst at the Counter Extremism Project concurred the immigrant community in Minnesota has proven to be ripe for targeting in recent years by specifically playing into the card of being something of an outsider
Josh Lipowsky, Senior Research Analyst at the Counter Extremism Project concurred the immigrant community in Minnesota has proven to be ripe for targeting in recent years by specifically playing into the card of being something of an outsider (Fox News/Hollie McKay)
“You can buy your clothes at a Somalia mall. You can buy insurance at a Somalia insurance adjuster. You can buy real estate at a Somali real estate adjuster,” explained a U.S official. “I think that is pretty unique.”
Most of those alleged to have joined al-Shabab had completed high school, and were either in college, or working in an array of industries as maintenance, security guards and caregivers. Others worked at rental car companies, money-wiring service centers, and in fashion retail.
One such person, Mahmud Said Omar, reportedly left in 2008 and went on to facilitate the conduit for other Minnesota-based recruits and returned to the U.S. a few months later. He was sentenced in 2013 to 20 years behind bars.
But there are other underlying causes, officials said.
Council on Foreign Relationsmember: Rep. Ilhan Omar is proving to be an enormous liability to America’s MuslimsVideo]
Jeanine Brudenell, who formerly served as the Somali liaison for the Minneapolis Police Department, told Fox News much of the extremism that has sparked in recent years – perhaps ironically – stemmed from the crackdown to dismantle local street gangs.
“In trying to lead youth away from joining gangs, many parents were taking their children to the mosques, which deal with everything, including mental health concerns,” she said. She said that opened the way for radicalization.
In one case, Zakaria Maruf, was known for some time as a member of the local Somali Hot Boyz gang. Yet he is reported to have become deeply religious after abandoning the street life, and around 2008 is alleged to have fled abroad. He was killed in Somalia the following year.
ISIS RECRUITMENT DRIVE IN SOMALIA COULD PROVE 'MASSIVE THREAT TO THE US PRESENCE' IN THE REGION
As for Omar, she spoke up for a group of six Somalis arrested in 2015 for trying to cross into Mexico, as part of a plan to join ISIS in Syria. As the case went to trial the following year, the then-state representative wrote a letter to the trial judge requesting “compassion” - and lighter sentencing on behalf of one of the Minnesota men, who was facing 30 years jail time.
“Such punitive measures not only lack efficacy, they inevitably create an environment in which extremism can flourish, aligning with the presupposition of terrorist recruitment,” Omar wrote. “The best deterrent to fanaticism is a system of compassion. We must alter our attitude and approach; if we truly want to affect change, we should refocus our efforts on inclusion and rehabilitation.”
ISIS has long waged a recruitment and propaganda war online.
ISIS has long waged a recruitment and propaganda war online. (Reuters)
Her position has been slammed by those who say she hasn't taken a tough enough stand.
“Rep. Omar is asking for our justice system to support known terrorists, this sets an extremely poor precedence and should not be allowed,” contended Rudolph Atallah, chief executive officer of White Mountain Research, and former Africa Counterterrorism in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “She clearly has a bias and an agenda and does not understand what the United States truly stands for.”
ILHAN OMAR ONCE BLAMED 'OUR INVOLVEMENT IN OTHER PEOPLE'S AFFAIRS' AFTER AL-SHABAB ATTACK ON KENYAN MALL
Omar has also been criticized by others in her community who contend her plea didn’t go far enough.
“A lot of people were disappointed, they felt she could have done more,” one Minneapolis local noted, arguing the boys had been coerced into making final arrangements to flee abroad by FBI informants, and would never have gone that far without encouragement.
Omar's office did not respond to a request for further comment.
Meanwhile, authorities have pushed back against the argument the Somalis arrested crossing into Mexico wouldn't have done so without the FBI involvement. Officials also said they repeatedly met with the families of the suspects, cautioning parents about their children's plans - to no avail.
“We would go out and interview people, try for an intervention, and really try to stop those people from going. But they were determined to go. They were committed. We tried to stop and could not,” one source said. “We had to prosecute to stop them from going.”
While Daud ended up with the 30-year sentence, others charged with similar offenses have since been more fortunate. In November 2016, a Minnesota judge gave 21-year-old Abdullahi Yusuf an unprecedented opportunity to avoid jail time by undergoing experimental “rehabilitation,” after having pled guilty in 2014 to purporting to join ISIS.
Six months later, he was back before the Judge having violated the terms of his probation – having been caught watching a news documentary about western ISIS fighters in the halfway house where he was confined. Nonetheless, Yusuf completed the carefully tailored “Heartland Democracy Education” program centered on studying literature, philosophy and writing poetry and in late 2017 was “integrated back into society” where he will be monitored for the next 20 years.
His lawyer, Jean Brandl, told Fox News Yusuf’s “transformation” has been nothing short of “successful” and one that could be adapted to others going down a dangerous road to radicalization.
“It was a program uniquely tailored to Abdullahi, but which can and does work with all teens or young adults who are straying onto unhealthy paths. (It) allowed Abdullahi to see his role as a member of his society rather than as an outsider,” Brandl continued, underscoring that it “can be used to make any young person feel integrated rather than at war with his or her personal universe.”
Abdullahi Yusuf, a Somali-American who was caught at the airport on his way to join a terrorist group, has since completed the first de-radicalization program in the United States.
Abdullahi Yusuf, a Somali-American who was caught at the airport on his way to join a terrorist group, has since completed the first de-radicalization program in the United States. ]
Authorities told Fox News that Yusuf was indeed a rare and unique case, in that he had gone from being the ringleader planning the move abroad to largely walking away from it prior to arrests being made.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Going forward, authorities say they are adjusting their approach to deal with the ever-changing threat climate.
“Our focus now is on home-grown violent extremists, and the Somali population is a factor in that,” added the federal official, highlighting a 2016 incident in which a Somali-American embarked on a mass stabbing spree at the St. Cloud mall in Minnesota, before being fatally shot by an off-duty police officer. “That is a more likely scenario at this point than a large class of kids trying to get to a foreign terrorist organization in the theater of war.”
Hollie McKayhas a been a Fox News Digital staff reporter since 2007. She has extensively reported from war zones including Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, and Latin America investigates global conflicts, war crimes and terrorism around the world. Follow her on Twitter.
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extensive coverage 2008
https://www.npr.org/series/102787287/the-somali-minneapolis-terrorist-axis
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FBI statistics reveal that Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, represented by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), is the terrorism recruitment capital of the United States.
According to the FBI, more Somali American men and boys from this district have joined, or have attempted to join, a foreign terror organization in the last 12 years than any other community in the US.
"Forty-five Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined," Fox News reports.
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In 2018, a dozen more Somalis were arrested, accused of planning to leave the US to join ISIS.
Ilhan's district is a very insular ethnic and religious community that has not fully assimilated into American society.
"For over a decade, Islamist terror groups have been able to recruit from Minnesota. This is, in part, because Minnesota has a large Muslim population compared to other parts of the US," Robin Simcox, a terrorism and national security expert at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News.
Federal authorities say they are "highly concerned" about this district's ties to international terrorism. "We are very conscious that there may still be fertile ground for that, and that is could re-start at any time," one official told Fox.
Recruitment for terrorism usually takes place online where jihadists criticize US counterterrorism policies, like targeted assassinations and drone strikes that sometimes kill innocent civilians. A number of these Somali terrorists have become suicide bombers while others are believed to have died on the battlefield.
Congresswoman Omar has a history of being sympathetic to Somalis terrorists.
She defended six Somalis arrested in 2015 for trying to cross into Mexico in an attempt to join ISIS in Syria. As the case moved forward in 2016, the then-state representative wrote a letter to the trial judge requesting "compassion" and a lighter sentence.
"Such punitive measures not only lack efficacy, they inevitably create an environment in which extremism can flourish, aligning with the presupposition of terrorist recruitment," Omar wrote. "The best deterrent to fanaticism is a system of compassion."
In 2013, Omar said al-Shabab's terror attack on a Kenyan shopping mall that killed nearly 70 people and wounded 200 others, was a reaction to US "involvement in other people's affairs."
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https://reason.com/2018/01/03/war-on-terror-minnesota-somali-immigrant/
wow, ways to step up eric boehm sp
praise entre
When Abdirahman Kahin landed in the United States in 1997, he only knew a handful of people. He pooled his money with a few other Somali refugees who landed the same day in Atlanta. They rented a van, pointed the steering wheel north and headed for Minnesota, a strange land nothing like their former home.
Twenty years after fleeing war and famine in Somalia, Kahin is peacefully feeding hundreds of Minnesotans every day. He's the owner of The Afro Deli, a successful restaurant that he opened in 2010 after more than a decade of working low-paying jobs. He serves Somali food, but made "Minnesota spicy" as a concession to the stereotypically Nordic tastes of many Midwesterners. The restaurant, Kahin says, is a bridge between cultures.
But his big smiles and delicious food belie the difficulties that Kahin and others like him have faced in coming to America and building a life here. He has a classic immigrant success story, one that has been replicated for centuries as waves of foreigners seek a better life. But he worries that America is now making it harder than ever for others to follow in his footsteps.
Somali refugees like Kahin have faced many of the same difficulties as other immigrant groups coming to America. They've had to learn a new language, find work, and build new social connections. They've faced racism and intolerance from those who came here before them. They've been on the outside of the political order, living in a democracy without having a voice in it.
Over time, like Kahin, they have moved closer to the inside. The first Somali-American state legislator was elected in Minnesota last year. But even as these immigrants settle in, the community finds itself facing a new set of challenges.
Minnesota's Somali communities have become domestic fronts in the war on terror. Federal law enforcement agencies have singled out Somali Muslims in the Twin Cities for a special surveillance program intended to curb terrorism since 2011. But there is little evidence that this program has been successful.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has instructed the federal government to step up the scrutiny of immigrants and refugees from a number of Muslim-majority countries. The Trump administration's so-called "travel ban" has gone through various iterations since January, but every version has included Somalia on the list of places from which visitors will be uniformly labeled as threats. The administration has also taken steps to reduce the number of refugees allowed into America. Only 45,000 will be accepted next year, down from the previous floor of 67,000 set by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
Against this national political backdrop, the Somali community in Minnesota has become a microcosm for the national debate over immigration, refugee resettlement, and national security. Under President Trump, the war on terror and the fight over immigration have become the same thing.
"THE GOAL IS TO BUILD NEIGHBORHOODS FROM WITHIN."
Bounded by a pair of interstates and tucked into a curve of the Mississippi River on the east side of Minneapolis, the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has long been a landing point for foreigners. The area was first settled in the 1890s by Germans and Swedes who came looking for work in the city's legendary flour mills. Vietnamese and South Asian immigrants reshaped the community during the 1970s, when the Riverside Plaza, a set of brutalist concrete apartment buildings that serve as a centerpiece for the neighborhood, was built.
In 1993, the United States began accepting refugees from Somalia after that country's government collapsed amid a regional civil war and famine. Many of the displaced resettled in Minneapolis. With a small community established there, others followed. Today, the Twin Cities are home to the largest Somali diaspora anywhere in the world outside of Africa.
Thousands more refugees have followed a similar path in the 20 years since. In 2015, the most recent year for which complete data is available, over 8,800 Somali refugees were resettled in the United States, with more taking up residence in Minnesota than anywhere else. Overall, more than 30,000 Somalis live in the state, according to U.S. Census data. The majority are in Minneapolis, but sizable communities have also been established in places like St. Cloud and Mankato.
Kahin arrived in Cedar-Riverside in 1997 after making the cross-country drive from Atlanta. He was just 20 years old. After struggling to find work, he landed a job with a video production company and eventually ran his own video business, filming weddings and other events. He also took classes at St. Thomas University's business school in downtown Minneapolis, and eventually earned his MBA.
Eventually, he entered the restaurant industry. His first venture was a failure, but The Afro Deli found success when he opened it in 2010 on the main drag of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, an area peppered with small, dimly lit bars, coffee shops, and independent theaters—a consequence of the neighborhood's relatively affordable rents and close proximity to the University of Minnesota—along with halal groceries and other Somali-owned service sector businesses.
Just last year, Kahin closed that location and re-opened The Afro Deli on the opposite side of the University of Minnesota campus, along the bustling Washington Avenue corridor. His new place—with menus displayed on shiny HD television screens, an exposed kitchen, and neon booths bathed in natural light from floor-to-ceiling front windows—looks like any other upscale fast food eatery. It fits right in between a Bruegger's Bagels and a generic college town pizzeria.
Photo by Eric Boehm
The place is meant to invite Minnesotans to try Somali food, Kahin says. He sees his restaurant as part of a growing trend of businesses trying to cross that cultural divide.
Kahin's success makes him an outlier compared with most of the Somali community in the Twin Cities. The unemployment rate in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood is nearly 18 percent—four times higher than the unemployment rate across the state of Minnesota as a whole (3.3 percent in October 2017) and further still above as the unemployment rate in Minneapolis (3 percent in September 2017).
Still, the refugee community has a sizeable economic footprint. Statewide, African immigrants earned an estimated collective income of $1.6 billion in 2014 and paid more than $183 million in state taxes, according to a study by Bruce Corrie, an economist at Concordia University in St. Paul. There are more than 2,000 African-owned businesses in the state, Corrie found, and more than 200 of them are owned by Somalis, according to the Minnesota Somali Chamber of Commerce.
Immigrant entrepreneurs face all the same difficulties as anyone else who wants to start a business, but with added cultural barriers. For Somali businesses, one of the biggest problems can be access to credit. "Banks won't even listen to you, no matter how good your idea might be," says Kahin. He opened The Afro Grill with help from a nonprofit, the African Development Center, that uses a mix of public and private funding to help immigrants launch businesses.
Banks might be unwilling to lend to refugees-turned-entrepreneurs, but there's also a religious barrier for many Somalis. Islam forbids borrowing or lending with interest, so devout Muslims have to find alternative banking solutions that aren't always readily available, says Samir Saikali, a grants manager at the St. Paul–based Neighborhood Development Center (NDC), a nonprofit that, like the one that helped Kahin launch his business, helps get promising immigrant businesses off the ground with a mix of private investment and state funds.
In addition to providing direct aid to new business ventures, the NDC runs a special banking program that comports with rules of Islam. To avoid charging interest, these banks will purchase an expensive item—a new freezer for a restaurant, for example, Saikali says—then will turn around and sell it to the business, at a mark-up. The buyer will pay off the expense on an installment plan, called "murabaha" in Arabic. Late fees and other penalties are fixed, not based on a percentage of the purchase price.
The NDC trains roughly 200 aspiring immigrant entrepreneurs each year. About 20 percent of them will eventually start a business in one of the organization's four targeted low-income, high immigrant neighborhoods. "People within a certain neighborhood are those who are best suited to develop their own neighborhoods, economically and culturally," says Saikali. "The goal is to build neighborhoods from within."
"WE DON'T TRUST THE FBI, AND WE HAVE GOOD REASON NOT TO."
In November 2016, during the final days of last year's presidential campaign, Donald Trump made a campaign stop in Minnesota. He spoke on the tarmac at Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, where nearly 1,000 Somalis are employed. But he wasn't there to talk about the hard-working immigrants who have boosted the state's economy. He was there to warn about the threat of Somali terrorism.
"Here in Minnesota, you've seen first-hand the problems caused with faulty refugee vetting, with very large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval," he said, calling the growing Somali community in the Twin Cities "a disaster." Trump argued that Somali immigrants intended to infiltrate American society as part of a terrorist campaign. "Some of them are joining ISIS," the soon-to-be-president said, "and spreading their extremist views all over our country and all over the world."
The U.S. Department of Justice says terrorist organizations in the Middle East have been actively trying to recruit Somalis living in Minnesota since at least 2007, when a group of about 20 Somali men and women left the Twin Cities to join the militant group al-Shabab. One of those men, Shirwa Ahmed, in 2008 drove a truck loaded with explosives into a government building in Puntland, Somalia. It was one of five simultaneous attacks carried out by al-Shabab that killed 28 people.
The Islamic State, a quasi-governmental terrorist group that rose to occupy significant portions of Iraq and Syria during 2014 –15, has similarly tried to recruit Minnesotan Somali-Americans to fight abroad or to conduct terror attacks on U.S. soil. An April 2015 video posted online by an ISIS-affiliated account specifically called for an attack on the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis. In late 2014, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune cited "federal authorities" claiming that one Minnesota man had died in Syria while fighting for ISIS.
In response, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and FBI launched a joint program to work with local police departments in three American cities—Boston, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis—to develop "comprehensive prevention and intervention pilot programs to help counter violent extremism within local communities."
In February 2015, the Justice Department produced a report outlining the methods of a program for "countering violent extremism," or CVE. The goal was to recruit ", elders, community organizations and associations" in an effort to work against the perceived threat of terrorist recruitment in the Somali-American community.
The chance of being killed in a terrorist attack in the United States is exceedingly low. Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst for the Cato Institute, a free market think tank based in Washington, D.C., looked at the period from 1975 through 2015—a time frame that includes incoming waves not only of Somali refugees but also Vietnamese and Cuban refugees and, more recently, Iraqi and Syrian refugees. He found that 154 foreign-born terrorists carried out attacks on U.S. soil that killed 3,024 people. More than 98 percent of those deaths occurred on September 11, 2001.
Nowrasteh calculates that there were 3,252,493 refugees admitted in that 41-year period. Only 20 committed, or were convicted of attempting to commit, domestic acts of terrorism. That amounts to one terrorist entering the country as a refugee for every 162,625 non-terrorists. Put a different way, an American has a 1 in 3.6 million chance of being killed by a foreign-born terrorist per year, but just a 1 in 3.6 billion chance per year of being killed by a terrorist who entered the country as a refugee.
"Substantial administrative hurdles and barriers are in place to block foreign-born terrorist infiltration from abroad," he concludes. "A sensible terrorism screening policy must do more good than harm to justify its existence. That means the cost of the damage the policy prevents should at least equal the cost it imposes."
The FBI's CVE program has caused myriad problems for the Somali community, says Ayaan Dahir, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Young Muslim Collective, a left-leaning student organization launched specifically in response to the program and dedicated to building what the group calls "a cohesive coalition against an insidious surveillance ." Fears about surveillance and entrapment have put strain on people and businesses and decreased the level of trust: How many of those imams, elders, and community organizations are secretly informing? "We don't trust the FBI, and we have good reason not to," Dahir says. "And I think the average American shouldn't [trust the FBI] either."
To highlight the friction, she points to the fact that the bureau has a "community liaison" stationed at a community center in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, where Somali kids gather to play basketball and participate in other after-school activities. The FBI and local police see the deployment of officers into those environments as part of an overall strategy aimed at community engagement, intended to be a first line of defense against the potential radicalization of American Muslims.
Dahir says many members of the community see it differently. "Why do 8-year-olds need to have interaction with law enforcement apparatuses?" she asks. "What you are telling these children is that they are inherently violent and they have a future of being criminal and they need to be monitored at that young age."
"Misinformation is being presented as true, and it's being accepted because of who it is coming from."
As part of the joint DOJ/DHS/FBI pilot program, local officials and representatives of law enforcement hold regular roundtable discussions and community meetings, which are open to the public. These are supposed to assuage fears of surveillance and help build "community resilience" against radicalization, according to the Justice Department. But they can also be used to spread misinformation and increase paranoia, says Dahir. She relates the story of an FBI agent at one such meeting telling the Somalis in attendance that they should welcome FBI agents into their homes as long as they have nothing to hide.
"Somebody else had to go up there and immediately correct that," Dahir says. "Misinformation is being presented as true, and it's being accepted because of who it is coming from."
A 2016 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the CVE program lacked a strategic plan and had no clearly established process by which to measure its effectiveness."We could not determine the extent to which the United States is better off today as a result of its CVE effort than it was in 2011," the GAO concluded. "That is because no cohesive strategy with measurable outcomes has been established to guide the multi-agency CVE effort towards its goals." In other words, the program has increased tensions between law enforcement and the Somali community, but there's little evidence that it has done much to make Americans safer.
The CVE program launched under President Obama. But Trump has seized anti-terrorism programs created by his White House predecessors, and his administration could weild those tools in ways that create more barrier for innocent immigrants from Muslim nations, and for those who have lived here for decades.
In September 2016, five years after the program launched, a Somali who came to America on a refugee visa stabbed 10 shoppers and employees at a St. Cloud mall. He was likely motivated "by some sort of inspiration from radical Islamic groups," according to then-FBI Director James Comey. Earlier in the year, three were convicted in federal court last year; the other six pleaded guilty.
Beyond the FBI, the Trump administration has taken steps to restrict the flow of refugees into the United States in the name of keeping Americans safe. Under the guise of stopping terrorists from entering the country, the administration has written—and repeatedly rewritten—its so-called "travel ban," which blocks immigrants and visitors from a number of Muslim-majority countries. The list of nations included in the travel ban has changed, but Somalia has been included in each one.
Somali immigrants already face tightened allowances, some of which target them directly. In the fiscal year that ended in September 2017, the United States accepted 53,716 refugees from all countries down from 84,994 the previous year. The total for 2017 was the eighth-lowest since the 1975, when the U.S. started tracking refugee immigration. The Trump administration plans to reduce the number admitted again next year, with a ceiling of only 45,000.
In October, Sayfullo Habibullaevich Saipov, a Uzbek immigrant who came to the United States in 2015, drove a rented truck into a crowd of people in lower Manhattan. Saipov's rampage killed eight people, six of whom were foreigners visiting from Argentina and Belgium, and injured 11 others. After being shot by police and arrested, Saipov claimed allegiance to ISIS. Following the attack, the Trump administration moved to further increase scrutiny for immigrants and asylum-seekers from Muslim-majority countres
"I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program [sic]," Trump tweeted hours after the attack."Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!"
"IT'S NOT ABOUT US VERSUS THEM."
The Somali Museum of Minnesota can be found in the basement of a nondescript, partially vacant retail building along Lake Street in Minneapolis. Its three rooms are filled with carvings, flags, utensils, cookware, and traditional clothing salvaged from Somalia by the curator, Osman Ali, or donated by other refugees. In one corner, there's a replica of a traditional Somali dwelling, a single-room hut with a thatched roof where Ali says an entire family would sleep together.
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How Minneapolis' Somali community became the terrorist...
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Feb 16, 2019 - ... a foreign terrorist organization from the largely Somali-American Minnesota ... Somali community became the terrorist recruitment capital of the US .... Extremism Project concurred the immigrant community in Minnesota has ...
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He says “We have a terror recruiting problem in Minnesota.” He said “It's not a Somali problem, it's not an immigrant problem. This is our problem, it's a ...
The War on Terror Is a War on Minnesota's Peaceful ...
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Jan 3, 2018 - The Somali community in Minnesota has become a microcosm for the ... the war on terror and the fight over immigration have become the same thing. .... have been actively trying to recruit Somalis living in Minnesota since at ...
The Somali-Minneapolis Terrorist Axis : NPR
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Over the past two years, at least two dozen young Somali-Americans have ... young men were recruited in Minneapolis and then traveled to Somalia to join a terrorist ... into a rash of disappearances from the Somali community in Minnesota.
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Correcting Assumptions in Counterterrorism – Cedar ...
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Feb 11, 2019 - If you're studying extremism among Somali-Americans in Minnesota, you ... Minnesota Somali-American resilience to terrorist recruitment and radicalization. ... public housing, commonly inhabited by newly arrived immigrants ...
History of the Somalis in Minneapolis–Saint Paul - Wikipedia
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Somalis are an ethnic group in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul (Twin Cities) urban area and makes up the largest Somali diasporas in the US. As of 2016, there were around 74,000 Somalis in Minnesota. ... Ethnic Somalis first emigrated to the Twin Cities as voluntary migrants in the .... "Al-Shabaab Recruits in the U.S." CNN.
Why Are There Jihadists In Minnesota? - The Tower - The Tower
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This is a recruitment video, intended to convince Somalis living overseas, often in ... This one, a tribute to three fallen terrorists, specifically calls on Muslims in the .... Which doesn't always make even the most peaceful Muslim immigrants feel ...
Muslim Congresswoman's District Reported to Be 'Terrorist ...
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Feb 18, 2019 - Ilhan Omar (D-MN), is the terrorism recruitment capital of the United States. According to the FBI, more Somali American men and boys from this ...
Somali and Somali American Experiences in Minnesota ...
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Feb 27, 2018 - Like earlier immigrant communities, Somalis have struggled to ... There was a fear of young males like me getting recruited to fight .... between Somalis in Minnesota and the terrorist groups Al-Shabaab and Islamic State (ISIS).
Called to Fight | MPR News
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Violent extremists are again recruiting young Muslims in Minnesota. The call to terror continues to trouble federal investigators, Muslim faith leaders, and the nation's largest Somali-American community.
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