SEATTLE — Abdi Jama’s phone started buzzing with questions from community members a month ago, when President Donald Trump referred to people from Somalia as “garbage” and said they should “go back to where they came from.”

The anxious calls and texts kept coming as immigration officers surged into Minneapolis, the largest Somali hub in the U.S., said Jama, a Somali American community leader and legal advocate in the Seattle area.

Then Trump badmouthed Somalis again during a White House speech last week, broadly blaming the community for fraud crimes in Minnesota, and Seattle-area community members are now reporting more activity by immigration officers.

“My phone has been blowing up,” Jama said. “The community is scared. People are not leaving their homes. I’m even carrying my U.S. passport now.”

The stress was on display Monday night in South Seattle at a “Know Your Rights” workshop held in English and Somali and attended by more than 50 people. As organizers passed out plates of sambusas and cups of tea, Jama and other expert panelists answered questions about immigration raids and whether Trump can strip citizenship from naturalized Americans.

Most people with ties to Somalia are U.S. citizens, and many others are legal permanent residents, Jama said. But the entire community is on edge, still, so leaders are trying to spread accurate information and speak out, he said.

Refugee stories

Washington had over 16,000 residents of Somali descent in the 2020 census, making the state a hub alongside Minnesota and Ohio. Most live in Seattle and South King County, said Mohamud Yussuf, longtime editor of Runta News, a media organization that caters to Somali community members.

People like Yussuf came in the 1990s as refugees from Somalia’s civil war and established community institutions in the Seattle area that attracted subsequent arrivals from the Muslim-majority East African nation.

“We have halal grocery stores here, restaurants and mosques,” he said.

Yussuf was a journalist in Somalia but initially drove a taxi in Seattle. He later earned a U.S. college degree and worked as a community organizer. Early arrivals like Yussuf now have U.S.-born children and grandchildren. Multiple Somali Americans have won local elections in Washington.

The picture is similar in Minnesota, though some fraud cases there involving Somali Americans and others are attracting negative attention.

Prosecutors say dozens of people have been convicted in schemes to steal hundreds of millions of government dollars by billing state agencies for social services that were never provided. They say the schemes could total even more money. Some critics have seized on the cases to disparage the Somali community in general, and it's become a target for the president.

Trump had previously clashed with U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali American from Minneapolis, and his administration had restricted travel between the U.S. and Somalia, among other countries like Afghanistan and Yemen.

Linking all Somali Americans to crimes committed by “some greedy, stupid people” is clearly unfair, said SeaTac Mayor Mohamed Egal, who believes Trump is directing anger at Somalis to distract voters from other issues.

“It’s the playbook we have seen before” with other groups, Egal said.

Local anxieties

Lots of Seattle-area Somali Americans have relatives in Minnesota and have been monitoring the tense situation there, said Bedria Abdullahi, who was elected in November to the SeaTac City Council.

Many Somali Americans in the Minneapolis area have missed work and avoid shopping out of fear, Abdullahi said, mentioning incidents like the arrest of a U.S. citizen by masked immigration officers who pushed him to his knees.

“So this isn’t about ‘illegals’ … or criminals. It’s really about racism,” she said, speaking in her personal capacity rather than on behalf of SeaTac.

Some Seattle-area community members are also taking precautions, Abdullahi said, partly due to reports of more immigration officers showing up in locations where many Somali Americans are known to live or work.

For example, there were arrests Monday of ride-hail drivers outside Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Hamdi Mohamed, director of Seattle’s office of immigrant and refugee affairs, said at Monday night’s workshop.

Some Somali Americans are delaying their travel plans because they don’t want to risk being detained at the airport, despite having done nothing wrong, said Mohamed, who is also an elected Port of Seattle commissioner.

There are concerns about hate crimes, too, with the possibility that Trump’s remarks may embolden bullying in schools or assaults in public. Somali women who wear hijabs could be particularly vulnerable because they may be more recognizable. Mohamed said she is in touch with Seattle police.

“I have had young women reach out to me because they take public transit,” including to classes at the University of Washington and Seattle University, Jama said. “They’re going to drive or have relatives drop them off.”

Speaking out

Nearly 100 elected officials from Washington, including Gov. Bob Ferguson and Attorney General Nick Brown, signed a statement this month condemning Trump’s comments about Somali Americans, Mohamed noted.

Like other Washingtonians with immigrant roots, Somali Americans contribute daily to the state's economic sectors, cultural life and more, and Trump's harmful, unacceptable and un-American" remarks put people's safety at risk and "have no place in our democracy," the statement said.

"We must stand firmly against hate in all its forms and speak clearly when language is used to diminish, divide or dehumanize our communities," Mohamed, Egal and Tukwila City Councilmember Mohamed Abdi added in a statement from local Somali American elected officials.

At Monday’s legal workshop, panelists tried to separate fact from fiction:

Although the Trump administration has put asylum approvals on hold, asylum interviews are still happening, they said. Trump has called for ending a "temporary protected status designation that allows certain Somalis to be in the U.S., but that would affect relatively few people, the panelists said.

Immigration officers can knock on your door, but you don’t have to let them in unless they have a warrant signed by a judge, the workshop's experts added. While U.S. citizens can be denaturalized under certain conditions, the process is very rare and must go through court, they said.

The challenge has been to strike the right balance between comfort and caution, said Jama, who nodded along Monday as an older woman in the crowd stood up to call for community strength and cohesion.

“We are under attack,” Jama said in response. “We need to be united.”

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