What to know about fraud allegations behind Trump's attacks on Somalis

Driving the news: Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said on Tuesday that her agency will be targeting visa fraud in Minnesota, where around 87,000 people with Somali roots live.

What they're saying: Trump said last week that he wanted to end temporary protected status for Somalis, which would impact approximately 700 people covered by TPS.

• "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!" he posted on Truth Social.

The other side: Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison suggested in a post on X that he may seek legal recourse if Trump removes the TPS protections.

• "Trump's announcement of termination of Somali TPS holders in Minnesota is legally problematic," he wrote. "While a president does have a lot of authority to designate and revoke TPS, he cannot legally wield that power to discriminate against an ethnic group or to target a state, like MN.
• "This ain't over."

What we're watching: The deployment of 100 ICE agents to Minnesota also starts this week, the New York Times reported.

• "When ICE agents interact with Somalis here, they will find what we've been saying for years: Almost all of us are U.S. citizens," state Sen. Zaynab Mohamed (DFL-Minneapolis), said in a statement.
• "This act of political theater is a waste of taxpayer money and will result in the harassment of peaceful American citizens trying to go about their day."

Here's what to know about the administration's targeting of Somalis in the U.S:

The Trump administration's visa fraud allegations

Zoom in: Noem levied allegations of visa fraud this week.

• "You told me to look into Minnesota and their fraud on visa programs, 50% of them are fraudulent," Noem said, blaming Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz during a Tuesday Cabinet meeting, without citing evidence for the figure.
• Walz responded to Noem on X, saying, "We welcome support in investigating and prosecuting crime. But pulling a PR stunt and indiscriminately targeting immigrants is not a real solution to a problem."

Reality check: Ana Pottratz Acosta, professor at the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School, told CBS News the 50% figure "doesn't sound plausible" based on her two decades of experience.

• "I think before giving any credence to those numbers, I really would want to see more specific data from the Department of Homeland Security to substantiate those allegations because they're very, very serious and really should not be made unless there is data or information to back up those claims," she said.
• Acosta also added that the rate of immigration fraud is relatively low overall because the penalties for doing so are serious.

In a response to a request for evidence about the 50% figure, the DHS told Axios that Noem was referring to Operation Twin Shield, an investigation led by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, ICE and the FBI.

• "Investigations found approximately half of the cases investigated were fraudulent," spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said. "This operation targeted cases including naturalization, H-1B visas, marriage fraud, and the Ukrainian humanitarian parole program."
• "USCIS is working to implement the most rigorous screening and vetting protocols in agency history," McLaughlin said, accusing the Biden administration of "prioritizing sheer numbers over rigorous vetting and strict adherence to legal requirements."

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said his police department, which includes Somali officers, will not aid federal agencies with immigration enforcement.

• "Our values and our commitment to the Somali community, to every community of immigrants and people in our city, is rock solid and will be unwavering," Frey said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Fraud charges with reported ties to the Somali community

Catch up quick: In March, a federal jury in Minneapolis convicted the leader of a now-defunct nonprofit Feeding Our Future and an associate on federal charges for their roles in a fraud scheme that involved $250 million in federal COVID aid.

• Feeding Our Future bilked funds from a long-running federal program for feeding needy children by claiming reimbursements for thousands more children a day than they served, a 2022 federal indictment alleged.
• Prosecutors at the time asserted that officials loosening the federal program's rules in 2020 as pandemic lockdowns took effect had left the door open for abuse.
• As of late November, 78 defendants in total had been charged for their involvement in the scheme, and there have been 50 convictions so far.

Zoom out: While the alleged ringleader was white, many of the defendants were Somalis, and most of them were U.S. citizens, fueling the Trump administration's scrutiny into the community.

• Following Feeding Our Future, several other fraud cases involving Medicaid and Minnesota's autism program came out implicating members of the state's Somali community.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on X this week that his agency will investigate allegations that money stolen from Minnesota programs "may have been diverted" to the Al-Shabaab militant group in Somalia.

• In 2018, similar claims about a child care assistance program funding Al-Shabaab surfaced, but the nonpartisan legislative auditor's investigation wasn't able to substantiate the allegations.
• Federal prosecutors have rejected claims that defendants charged in recent schemes are linked to terrorists, and none have faced terrorism financing charges so far.

• Former U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andy Luger, who oversaw the Feeding Our Future case, told the Minnesota Star Tribune last week that the defendants his office prosecuted "were looking to get rich, not fund overseas terrorism."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D, Minn.) on CNN Sunday pushed back against the Trump administration's characterization of Somalis.

• "Every state has a problem with crime, but what the President has done here is taken a horrific crime that occurred in Washington, D.C., where one beloved guard member is still struggling for his life, another was shot and killed. … He took that case, and then he went 2,400 miles away to Somalia and somehow indicted an entire group of people."
• "He tries to stoke division," Klobuchar said, "and make people hate each other."

The Trump administration threatens funding

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to withhold over $30 million in federal highway funding from Minnesota, citing concerns that the state improperly issued commercial drivers' licenses.

• Duffy demanded Minnesota revoke licenses, blaming "illegal foreign drivers" for "months of deadly crashes," accusing the state of doling out "trucking licenses to unsafe, unqualified non-citizens."
• "My statement on this is, we are following the law exactly as it's written, exactly as we've implemented it for decades," Walz responded.

Flashback: Duffy revoked $40 million in federal funding from California, claiming that the state wasn't enforcing English language requirements.

Between the lines: Between threatening SNAP funds to "blue states" and Duffy's threats over CDLs, the administration is targeting states where leaders have publicly brawled with Trump.

• Every state Duffy has threatened has been a Democrat-led state, but he has said the department is auditing others, including Texas and South Dakota.

Walz, who has maintained that the state "followed the law" on issuing CDLs, suggested Tuesday that the administration's actions were retaliation for his online spat with Trump.

• "Strange coincidence that the President goes on a rant and uses a slur against me, and I just asked him to do what every other president has done, release his medical records, and now they bring this in," he said.

The Somali population in the U.S.

By the numbers: An estimated 260,000 people of Somali descent were living in the U.S. in 2024, per the Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey.

• Many Somalis began immigrating to Minnesota in the 1990s amid a civil war, drawn to employment opportunities and social services in parts of the state, Ahmed Ismail Yusuf wrote in his 2012 book "Somalis in Minnesota."

Context: Somali citizens were first granted TPS status in 1991, under former President George H.W. Bush.

• There "exist extraordinary and temporary conditions in Somalia that prevent aliens who are nationals of Somalia from returning to Somalia in safety," the U.S. Attorney General found at the time.
• TPS status for Somalis has been either extended or re-designated 27 times since then due to ongoing conflict in the nation, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service earlier this year.
• "It was never meant to be an asylum program," Noem said in a press briefing on Sunday, defending Trump's decision to end the TPS for nationals of Somalia, Venezuela and Nicaragua, among other nations. "It was always meant to be put in place after an incident or an event on a temporary basis, and that's what the evaluation will be."

Editor's note: This story has been updated with a DHS statement.