Does Trump hate Somalis, or does he fear them?

by David Bacon

Lewiston, Maine – It’s clear that Trump hates Somalis. In his first administration, he included Somalia as one of his “shithole” countries and tried to prohibit its people from coming to the U.S. “They come from hell,” he said just the other day. “We don’t want them in our country.”

Trump singled out courageous Congress Member Ilhan Omar (again) and called her “garbage.” Omar, with great dignity, responded only to say she thought his attention “creepy,” as indeed it is. But his hatred of Somalis is also revealing.

Trump is afraid, and he has reason to be. Since they started coming to the U.S. in the wake of the destabilization of their country in the 1990s, Somalis have become one of the most politically engaged immigrant communities in this country. In Minnesota, it’s not just Ilhan Omar. The state now has three members of its Legislature who were born in Somalia.

Trump accuses them of “taking over” Minnesota, as though they’d somehow managed to produce votes by magic. But anyone can see that what Trump really has is a bad case of fear. Given the state’s size (5.8 million) and the community’s size (43,000), it’s clear that far more votes come from non-Somalis than Somalis.

The other state where Somalis are getting elected is the whitest state in the country: Maine. Deqa Dhalac was elected to the South Portland City Council in 2018, and in 2021 the other councilors chose her as mayor. Now she’s in the state Legislature, along with two other Somalis. Of the 1.4 million people who live in Maine, only 6,000 of them were either born in Somalia or have Somali parents.

What scares Trump is that white people are voting for Somalis in large numbers, because they have good political skills. They speak about the basic class interests that motivate most working class people to the polls. Dhalac’s program includes responding to climate change (Portland is on Maine’s coast), affordable housing, and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

The experience of Somalis has not been a history of easy acceptance, though. In nearby Lewiston, another Maine city where many have settled, they organized a mosque when they decided to make the city home. But in 2006 someone threw a pig’s head into it.

The mayor of Lewiston announced in 2002 that Somalis should stop coming. That made white supremacy an acceptable attitude, and 32 people demonstrated to support the mayor. Another 4,000 counter-protested, however, and Dhalac announced to them, “I am a Muslim, Black immigrant woman, and I’m not going anywhere.” Fifteen years later she was on the South Portland City Council.

In Rockland, 50 miles from Lewiston, the City Council responded to Trump’s anti-immigrant insults and threats by adopting, 4-1, an ordinance telling its police not to cooperate with ICE. Immigrant rights activists and immigrant communities are fighting for a similar bill, LD 1971, in the State Legislature.

But Trump’s “garbage” insult is frightening. During his first term, after he’d demonized and tried to ban immigrants from African and Middle Eastern countries, someone shot into the mosque. Many Somalis are in the U.S. with Temporary Protected Status, which Trump ended for other nationalities. They worry they could be next. Still, the local imam, Saleh Mahamud, says: “This is my country. My children were born here. And we are not going anywhere else.”

Award-winning photojournalist and author David Bacon spent 20 years as a labor organizer and immigrant rights activist. He has been a reporter and documentary photographer for 18 years, shooting for many national publications, and has exhibited his work internationally.

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